Full text of "Nagarjuna The Fundamental Wisdom Of The Middle Way"

See other formats

Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika

"So

TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY RY JAY L. GARFIELD

The

Fundamental
Wisdom
of the
Middle
Way

Nagarjuna’s

Mulamadhyamakakdrika

TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY BY

JAY L. GARFIELD

New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1995

Oxford University Press

Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok
Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi
Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne
Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore
Taipei Tokyo Toronto

and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nagarjuna, 2nd cent.

[Madhyamakakarika. English & Sanskrit]

The fundamental wisdom of the middle way :

Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika /

Translation and commentary by
Jay L. Garfield,
p. cm.

ISBN 0-19-509336-4 (pbk.);

ISBN 0-19-510317-3 (cloth)

1. Madhyamika (Buddhism) — Early works to 1800.

I. Garfield, Jay L., 1955—.

BQ2792.E5G37 1995 294.3'85— dc20 95-1051

Printed in the United States of America

I dedicate this work,
with profound gratitude
and respect,

to the Most Ven. Professor Samdhong Rinpoche:
scholar, educator, statesman, public servant
and shining exemplar of monastic life.

Preface

This is a translation of the Tibetan text of Mulamadhyamakaka-
rika. It is perhaps an odd idea to translate a Tibetan translation of
a Sanskrit text and to retranslate a text of which there are four
extant English versions. My reasons for doing so are these: First, I
am not satisfied with any of the other English versions. Every
translation, this one included, of any text embodies an interpreta-
tion, and my interpretation differs in various respects from those of
my predecessors in this endeavor. This is to be expected. As Tuck
(1990) has correctly observed, Nagarjuna, like any philosopher
from a distant cultural context, is always read against an interpre-
tive backdrop provided by the philosophical presuppositions of the
interpreter, and by previous readings of Nagarjuna. So I claim no
special privileged position vis a vis Streng (1967), Inada (1970),
Sprung (1979), or Kalupahana (1986)— only a different position,
one that I hope will prove useful in bringing Mulamadhyama-
kakarika into contemporary philosophical discourse. I, like any
translator/interpreter must acknowledge that there is simply no
fact of the matter about the correct rendering of any important and
genuinely interesting text. Interpretations, and with them, transla-
tions, will continue to evolve as our understanding of the text
evolves and as our interpretive horizon changes. Matters are even
more complex and indeterminate when the translation crosses cen-
turies, traditions and languages, and sets of philosophical assump-
tions that are quite distant from one another, as is the case in the
present project. So each of the available versions of the text em-
bodies a reading. Inada reads Nagarjuna from the standpoint of

Preface

viii

the Zen tradition, and his translation reflects that reading; Kalu-
pahana reads Nagarjuna as a Theravada commentator on the
Kaccayanagotta-sutra , and his translation reflects that reading, as
well as his view about the affinities between James’s pragmatism
and Theravada Buddhism. Sprung adopts Murti’s Kantian interpre-
tation of Madhyamika, and his translation reflects that interpreta-
tion. Streng reads the text as primarily concerned with religious
phenomenology. There is no translation of this text into English,
and no commentary on it, that specifically reflects an Indo-Tibetan
Prasangika-Madhyamika interpretation. Inasmuch as this is my
own preferred way to read Nagarjuna, and the reading dominant
in Tibetan and highly influential in Japanese and Chinese discus-
sions of Mulamadhyamakakarikd , I believe that it is important to
fill this lacuna in the English bibliography.

Having argued that all translation involves some interpretation
and, hence, that there is always some distance between an original
text and a translation, however good and canonical that translation
may be, it follows that Mulamadhyamakakarikd and dBu-ma rtsa-
ba shes-rab differ, however close they may be and however canoni-
cally the latter is treated. Since dBu-ma rtsa-ba shes-rab is the text
read by and commented on by generations of Tibetan philoso-
phers, I think that it is important that an English translation of this
very text be available to the Western philosophical public. This
text is hence worthy in its own right of translation inasmuch as it is
the proper subject of the Tibetan philosophical literature I and
others find so deep and fascinating.

This is not a critical scholarly edition of the text. It is not philo-
logical in intent; nor is it a discussion of the commentarial litera-
ture on Nagarj una’s text. There is indeed a need for such a book,
but that need will have to be filled by someone else. This is rather
meant to be a presentation of a philosophical text to philosophers,
and not an edition of the text for Buddhologists. If philosophers
and students who read my book thereby gain an entrance into
Nagarj una’s philosophy and see Mulamadhyamakakarikd , as inter-
preted herein, as a text worthy of study and discussion, this work
will have served its purpose. Since my intended audience is not
Buddhologists, per se, but Western philosophers who are inter-
ested in Buddhist philosophy, I have tried to balance standard

Preface

renderings of Buddhist terminology with more perspicuous contem-
porary philosophical language. I am not sure that I have always
made the right decisions or that I have found the middle path
between the extremes of Buddhological orthodoxy and Western
revisionism. But that is the aim.

I am also striving for that elusive middle path between two other
extremes in translation: I am trying on the one hand to avoid the
unreadable literalism of translations that strive to provide a verba-
tim report of the words used the original, regardless of whether
that results in a comprehensible English text. But there is on the
other hand the extreme represented by a translation written in
lucid English prose purporting to be what the original author
would have written had he been a twentieth-century philosopher
writing in English, or one that, in an attempt to convey what the
text really means on some particular interpretation, is in fact not a
translation of the original text, but a completely new book, bearing
only a distant relation to the original. This hopelessly mixes the
tasks of translation on the one hand and critical commentary on
the other. Of course, as I have noted above, these tasks are inter-
twined. But there is the fault of allowing the translation to become
so mixed with the commentary that one no longer has a grip on, for
example, what is Nagarjuna and what is Garfield. After all, al-
though the text is interpreted in being translated, this text should
still come out in translation as a text which could be interpreted in
the ways that others have read it. Because the original does indeed
justify competing interpretations. That is one of the things that
makes it such an important philosophical work.

Amherst , Mass.
November 1994

J. L. G.

Acknowledgments

Thanks are already due to many who have helped at different
stages of this project: Thanks to Bob Thurman and David Sloss for
first introducing me to Buddhist philosophy and then for encourag-
ing me to wade deeper. Thanks to David Kalupahana, Steve Odin,
Kenneth Inada, and Guy Newland, as well as to David Karnos,
Joel Aubel, Dick Garner, and William Herbrechtsmeier for many
hours of valuable and enjoyable discussion of this text at the Na-
tional Endowment for the Humanities Summer institute on Nagar-
juna in Hawaii. And thanks to the NEH for the grant support that
enabled my participation in that institute. I am especially grateful
to Guy Newland for many subsequent conversations, useful sugges-
tions, encouragement, and a critical reading of my work. Thanks
to Janet Gyatso for countless hours of profitable and enjoyable
philosophical conversation and for many useful and detailed criti-
cisms and suggestions on this and other related work. Thanks to
the Ven. Geshe Lobzang Tsetan for starting me in Tibetan, for
much useful philosophical interchange, for teaching me an im-
mense amount about Madhyamika, and for his close criticism of
this text; to Georges Dreyfus (Geshe Sengye Samdup) for much
useful advice and discussion; and to Joshua and Dianne Cutler and
the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center of North America for hospi-
tality. I also thank John Dunne for detailed comments on several
chapters of an earlier draft of this translation.

I am grateful to the Indo- American Foundation, the Council for
the International Exchange of Scholars, and the Smithsonian Insti-
tution for an Indo- American Fellowship in 1990-91. During that

xii

Acknowledgments

time, as a Visiting Senior Research Scholar at the Central Institute
of Higher Tibetan Studies, I began work on this project. I owe an
enormous debt of gratitude to The Most Ven. Prof. Samdhong
Rinpoche and his staff for hosting me and my family at the Central
Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies and to Rinpoche himself for his
generous personal help. I thank the Ven. Geshe Ngawang Sherab
for all of his kind logistical help at Santarakshita Library and for
friendship and philosophical interchange. Thanks also to the Ven.
Lobzang Norbu Shastri and the Ven. Acarya Ngawang Samten for
extensive conversations from which I learned much and for useful
comments on this work and to Karma for Tibetan lessons.

I am deeply grateful to the Ven. Prof. Geshe Yeshes Thap-Khas
for reading dBu-ma rtsa-ba shes-rab and related texts with me and
for giving me his invaluable oral commentary on these texts during
that year and on many subsequent occasions. Nobody has taught me
more about Madhyamika philosophy, and it is hard to imagine a
more patient, generous, and incisive scholar and teacher. Without
his lucid teachings, and without Geshe-la’s enormous patience, I
could never have approached this text with any degree of success.
While he would not agree with everything I say, my own reading of
this text is enormously influenced by his. Special thanks to Sri Yeshi
Tashi Shastri for his translation and transcription assistance during
many of these sessions and for an enormous amount of cheerful and
generous general research assistance, including a great deal of care-
ful proofreading and detailed comments on this translation.

During that year and in subsequent years I also benefited greatly
from my visits to the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics. I am deeply
grateful to the Ven. Prof. Geshe Lobzang Gyatso for his hospitality
and for his teaching. In our many conversations and from his writ-
ings I have learned a great deal, and this project certainly reflects
his influence. Without his patient advice on interpretative and
expository details and without his vigorous critique of many of my
ideas it would have been impossible to produce this commentary. I
thank the Ven. Sherab Gyatso for his tireless and invaluable trans-
lation and assistance during that time. The Ven. Sherab Gyasto,
The Ven. Graham Woodhouse, the Ven. Tenzin Dechen, and the
Ven. Huen have given much to me in many hours of philosophical
interchange through translation help and through their hospitality

Acknowledgments

xiii

and friendship. Mr. Phillipe Goldin has also offered many helpful
suggestions on the translation and commentary. I also thank the
Ven. Khamtrul Rinpoche, the Ven. Geshe Yeshe Topden (Gen
Drup-Thop) and Gen Lam-Rim-pa for their teachings and Acarya
Nyima Tshering for his introduction and translation on those occa-
sions. Special thanks to Nyima Penthog for improving my Tibetan.

I thank His Holiness the Dalai Lama for his encouragement and
for valuable discussion of some difficult interpretative issues.

I am also very grateful to friends and colleagues at Drepung
Loseling Monastic College. My visit there was extremely enjoyable
and also philosophically fruitful. Thanks to the Ven. Geshe Dak-pa
Toepgyal and the Ven. Thupten Dorjee for arranging everything
and for talking with me about this and other work. I am very
grateful to the Ven. Geshe Namgyal Wangchen for detailed com-
ments and encouragement on this work and for useful discussions
about Madhyamika, translation, the task of presenting Buddhist
philosophical texts to the West, and other topics.

My acknowledgment of help in India would not be complete
without acknowledging the gracious hospitality and assistance in
living of Sri N. N. Rai, Sri Arun Kumar Rai, Sri A. R. Singh, and
their families in Sarnath; the hospitality of Kunzom Topden
Martam and his family in Sikkim — it was the Martam house in
which the writing actually got started; and Dr. L. S. Suri of the
American Institute of Indian Studies in New Delhi, whose adminis-
trative efficiency kept everything moving smoothly.

I am deeply grateful to four friends who read a complete draft of
this work and provided honest, searching, sometimes scathing criti-
cism. What more could one ask from colleagues and friends? Many
of their suggestions are incorporated in the book as it now stands,
and much of whatever is good in it is due to their enormous contribu-
tions. Sometimes I have disagreed with each of them. And whatever
errors remain are certainly my own. So thanks especially to the Ven.
Gareth Sparham, the Ven. Sherab Gyatso, Guy Newland, and Jane
Braaten for copious corrections and criticism and for extensive pro-
ductive discussion. Thanks also to Prof. Alan Sponberg for useful
comments on an earlier draft and to Janet Gyatso, Graham Parkes,
and Georges Dreyfus for reading and commenting on the penulti-
mate draft.

xiv

Acknowledgments

Another group of colleagues to whom I owe thanks are those
who kept faith. This may require some explanation. I discovered
when I — a Western, analytically trained philosopher of mind —
began to work on Buddhist philosophy that many in philosophy
and cognitive science took this as evidence of some kind of insan-
ity, or at least as an abandonment of philosophy, per se. This is not
the place to speculate on the origins or nature of the stigma attach-
ing in some parts of our profession to Asian philosophy. But it is a
sad fact to be noted and to be rectified. In any case, I therefore
owe special thanks to those who went out of their way to support
this work and to let me know that they took it and me seriously. I
thank especially my friend and colleague Meredith Michaels for
constant support, advice, and encouragement. And I thank Mur-
ray Kiteley, John Connolly, Nalini Bhushan, Kathryn Addelson,
Elizabeth Spellman, Frederique Marglin, Lee Bowie, Tom Warten-
burg, Vere Chappell, Gareth Matthews, and John Robison, as well
as Dan Lloyd, Steve Horst, and Joe Rouse. Thanks under this
head also go to many of my nonphilosopher colleagues in the
Hampshire College Cultural Studies program. I single out Mary
Russo, Joan Landes, Susan Douglas, Jeffery Wallen, Norman Hol-
land, and L. Brown Kennedy.

I also gratefully acknowledge the support of several Hewlett-
Mellon faculty development grants from Hampshire College and
thank the deans of the college for supporting this work so gener-
ously. I am also grateful for the support of this project and of
related projects involving academic exchange between the Ameri-
can and Tibetan academic communities from President Greg
Prince of Hampshire College. Thanks also to Ms. Ruth Hammen
and Ms. Leni Bowen for regular logistical support, to Mr. Andrew
Janiak for his extensive assistance and editorial suggestions in the
final stages of manuscript preparation, and to Mr. Shua Garfield
and Mr. Jeremy Mage for additional assistance in manuscript prepa-
ration and proofreading. Thanks as well to many groups of stu-
dents in “Convention, Knowledge and Existence: European and
Indo-Tibetan Perspectives” for putting up with and helping me to
refine my presentation of this text and for my students in Buddhist
Philosophy at Mount Holyoke College for working through an
earlier draft of this text.

Acknowledgments

Portions of the translations of and commentaries on Chapters I,
II, XIII, and XXIV appeared in Philosophy East and West in Gar-
field (1990) and (1994). I thank the editors for permission to use
that material here. The Tibetan edition of the text is from dGe
’dun grub, dBu ma rtsa shes rtsa y grel bzhugs (Commentary on
Mulamadhyamakakarika ), Ge Lugs Pa Students’ Welfare Publish-
ing, Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, 1987.

I am more grateful than I could ever express to my family for
accompanying me to India for one year, for enduring my absence
when I have been in India alone, and for enduring my preoccupa-
tion with this and related philosophical projects. I am especially
grateful to Blaine Garson, who has shouldered far more than her
fair share of parenting and other household responsibilities. Every
stage of this project is dependent upon her help, sacrifice, and
support.

I hope that I haven’t forgotten anybody.

Contents

Part One

The Text of Mulamadhyamakakarikd

Dedicatory Verses, 2
I Examination of Conditions, 3
II Examination of Motion, 6

III Examination of the Senses, 10

IV Examination of the Aggregates, 12
V Examination of Elements, 14

VI Examination of Desire and the Desirous, 16
VII Examination of the Conditioned, 18
VIII Examination of the Agent and Action, 23
IX Examination of the Prior Entity, 26
X Examination of Fire and Fuel, 28
XI Examination of the Initial and Final Limits, 31
XII Examination of Suffering, 33

XIII Examination of Compounded Phenomena, 35

XIV Examination of Connection, 37
XV Examination of Essence, 39

XVI Examination of Bondage, 41

xviii

Contents

XVII Examination of Actions and Their Fruits, 43
XVIII Examination of Self and Entities, 48

XIX Examination of Time, 50

XX Examination of Combination, 52

XXI Examination of Becoming and Destruction, 56
XXII Examination of the Tathagata, 60

XXIII Examination of Errors, 63

XXIV Examination of the Four Noble Truths, 67
XXV Examination of Nirvana, 73

XXVI Examination of The Twelve Links, 77
XXVII Examination of Views, 79

Part Two

The Text and Commentary

Introduction to the Commentary, 87
Dedicatory Verses, 100
I Examination of Conditions, 103
II Examination of Motion, 124

III Examination of the Senses, 136

IV Examination of the Aggregates, 142
V Examination of Elements, 149

VI Examination of Desire and the Desirous, 153
VII Examination of the Conditioned, 159
VIII Examination of the Agent and Action, 178

IX Examination of the Prior Entity, 183

X Examination of Fire and Fuel, 189

XI Examination of the Initial and Final Limits, 196

Contents

xix

XII Examination of Suffering, 202

XIII Examination of Compounded Phenomena, 207

XIV Examination of Connection, 216
XV Examination of Essence, 220

XVI Examination of Bondage, 225
XVII Examination of Actions and Their Fruits, 231
XVIII Examination of Self and Entities, 245

XIX Examination of Time, 254

XX Examination of Combination, 258

XXI Examination of Becoming and Destruction, 267
XXII Examination of the Tathagata, 275

XXIII Examination of Errors, 284

XXIV Examination of the Four Noble Truths, 293
XXV Examination of Nirvana, 322

XXVI Examination of The Tvelve Links, 335
XXVII Examination of Views, 342

References, 361
Index, 367

PART ONE

The Text of

Mulamadhyamakakarika

Dedicatory Verses

I prostrate to the Perfect Buddha,

The best of teachers, who taught that
Whatever is dependently arisen is
Unceasing, unborn,

Unannihilated, not permanent,

Not coming, not going,

Without distinction, without identity,
And free from conceptual construction.

Chapter I

Examination of Conditions

1. Neither from itself nor from another,

Nor from both,

Nor without a cause,

Does anything whatever, anywhere arise.

2. There are four conditions: efficient condition;
Percept-object condition; immediate condition;
Dominant condition, just so.

There is no fifth condition.

3. The essence of entities

Is not present in the conditions, etc ... .

If there is no essence,

There can be no otherness-essence.

4. Power to act does not have conditions.

There is no power to act without conditions.
There are no conditions without power to act.
Nor do any have the power to act.

5. These give rise to those,

So these are called conditions.

As long as those do not come from these,

Why are these not non-conditions?

4 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

6. For neither an existent nor a non-existent thing
Is a condition appropriate.

If a thing is non-existent, how could it have a
condition?

If a thing is already existent, what would a condition
do?

7. When neither existents nor
Non-existents nor existent non-existents are

established,

How could one propose a “productive cause?’*

If there were one, it would be pointless.

8. An existent entity (mental episode)

Has no object.

Since a mental episode is without an object,

How could there be any percept-condition?

9. Since things are not arisen,

Cessation is not acceptable.

Therefore, an immediate condition is not reasonable.
If something has ceased, how could it be a condition?

10. If things did not exist
Without essence,

The phrase, “When this exists so this will be,”

Would not be acceptable.

11. In the several or united conditions
The effect cannot be found.

How could something not in the conditions
Come from the conditions?

12. However, if a nonexistent effect
Arises from these conditions,

Why does it not arise

From non-conditions?

Examination of Condition

13. If the effect’s essence is the conditions,

But the conditions don’t have their own essence,

How could an effect whose essence is the conditions
Come from something that is essenceless?

14. Therefore, neither with conditions as their essence,
Nor with non-conditions as their essence are there any

effects.

If there are no such effects,

How could conditions or non-conditions be evident?

Chapter II

Examination of Motion

1. What has been moved is not moving.

What has not been moved is not moving.

Apart from what has been moved and what has not
been moved,

Movement cannot be conceived.

2. Where there is change, there is motion.

Since there is change in the moving,

And not in the moved or not-moved,

Motion is in that which is moving.

3. How would it be acceptable
For motion to be in the mover?

When it is not moving, it is not acceptable
To call it a mover.

4. For whomever there is motion in the mover,

There could be non-motion

Evident in the mover.

But having motion follows from being a mover.

5. If motion is in the mover,

There would have to be a twofold motion:

Examination of Motion

One in virtue of which it is a mover,

And one in virtue of which it moves.

6. If there were a twofold motion,

The subject of that motion would be twofold.

For without a subject of motion,

There cannot be motion.

7. If without a mover

It would not be correct to say that there is motion,
Then if there were no motion,

How could there be a mover?

8. Inasmuch as a real mover does not move,

And a non-mover does not move,

Apart from a mover and a non-mover,

What third thing could move?

9. When without motion,

It is unacceptable to call something a mover,

How will it be acceptable
To say that a mover moves?

10. For him from whose perspective a mover moves,
There would be the consequence that
Without motion there could be a mover.

Because a mover moves.

11. If a mover were to move,

There would be a twofold motion:

One in virtue of which he is a mover,

And one in virtue of which the mover moves.

12. Motion does not begin in what has moved,

Nor does it begin in what has not moved,

Nor does it begin in what is moving.

In what, then, does motion begin?

8 THE TEXT OF MVLAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

13. Prior to the beginning of motion,

There is no beginning of motion in
The going or in the gone.

How could there be motion in the not-gone?

14. Since the beginning of motion
Cannot be conceived in any way,

What gone thing, what going thing,

And what non-going thing can be posited?

15. Just as a moving thing is not stationary,

A non-moving thing is not stationary.

Apart from the moving and the non-moving,
What third thing is stationary?

16. If without motion

It is not appropriate to posit a mover,

How could it be appropriate to say
That a moving thing is stationary?

17. One does not halt from moving,

Nor from having moved or not having moved.
Motion and coming to rest
And starting to move are similar.

18. That motion just is the mover itself
Is not correct.

Nor is it correct that

They are completely different.

19. It would follow from

The identity of mover and motion
That agent and action
Are identical.

20. It would follow from

A real distinction between motion and mover
That there could be a mover without motion
And motion without a mover.

Examination of Motion

21. When neither in identity
Nor in difference

Can they be established,

How can these two be established at all?

22. The motion by means of which a mover is manifest
Cannot be the motion by means of which he moves.

He does not exist before that motion.

So what and where is the thing that moves?

23. A mover does not carry out a different motion

From that by means of which he is manifest as a mover.
Moreover, in one mover
A twofold motion is unacceptable.

24. A really existent mover

Doesn’t move in any of the three ways.

A non-existent mover

Doesn’t move in any of the three ways.

25. Neither an entity nor a nOn-entity
Moves in any of the three ways.

So motion, mover and

And route are non-existent.

Chapter III

Examination of the Senses

1. Seeing, hearing, smelling,

Tasting, touching, and mind
Are the six sense faculties.

Their spheres are the visible objects, etc. . . .

2. That very seeing does not see
Itself at all.

How can something that cannot see itself
See another?

3. The example of fire
Cannot elucidate seeing.

Along with the moved and not-moved and motion
That has been answered.

4. When there is not even the slightest
Nonseeing seer,

How could it makes sense to say
That seeing sees?

5. Seeing itself does not see.

Nonseeing itself does not see.

Through seeing itself

The clear analysis of the seer is understood.

Examination of the Senses

Without detachment from vision there is no seer.

Nor is there a seer detached from it.

If there is no seer

How can there be seeing or the seen?

Just as the birth of a son is said to occur
In dependence on the mother and father,

So consciousness is said to arise
In dependence on the eye and material form.

From the nonexistence of seeing and the seen it follows
that

The other four faculties of knowledge do not exist.

And all the aggregates, etc.,

Are the same way.

Like the seen, the heard, the smelled,

The tasted, and the touched, -
The hearer, sound, etc.,

And consciousness should be understood.

Chapter IV

Examination of the Aggregates

1. Apart from the cause of form,

Form cannot be conceived.

' Apart from form,

The cause of form is not seen.

2. If apart from the cause of form, there were form,
Form would be without cause.

But nowhere is there an effect
Without a cause.

3. If apart from form

There were a cause of form,

It would be a cause without an effect.

But there are no causes without effects.

4. When form exists,

A cause of the arising of form is not tenable.
When form is non-existent,

A cause of the arising of form is not tenable.

5. Form itself without a cause

Is not possible or tenable.

Therefore, think about form, but

Do not construct theories about form.

Examination of the Aggregates

6. The assertion that the effect and cause are similar
Is not acceptable.

The assertion that they are not similar
Is also not acceptable.

7. Feelings, discriminations, and dispositions
And consciousness and all such things
Should be thought of

In the same way as material form.

8. When an analysis is made through emptiness,

If someone were to offer a reply,

That reply will fail, since it will presuppose
Exactly what is to be proven.

9. When an explanation is made through emptiness,
Whoever would find fault with it

Will find no fault, since the criticism will presuppose
Exactly what is to be proven.

Chapter V

Examination of Elements

1. Prior to a characteristic of space
There is not the slightest space.

If it arose prior to the characteristic

Then it would, absurdly, arise without a characteristic.

2. A thing without a characteristic
Has never existed.

If nothing lacks a characteristic,

Where do characteristics come to be?

3. Neither in the uncharacterized nor in the characterized
Does a characteristic arise.

Nor does it arise

In something different from these two.

4. If characteristics do not appear,

Then it is not tenable to posit the characterized object.
If the characterized object is not posited,

There will be no characteristic either.

5. From this it follows that there is no characterized
And no existing characteristic.

Nor is there any entity

Other than the characterized and the characteristic.

Examination of Elements

6. If there is no existent thing.

Of what will there be nonexistence?

Apart from existent and nonexistent things
Who knows existence and nonexistence?

7. Therefore, space is not an entity.

It is not a nonentity.

Not characterized, not without character.
The same is true of the other five elements.

8. Fools and reificationists who perceive
The existence and nonexistence

Of objects

Do not see the pacification of objectification.

Chapter VI

Examination of Desire and
the Desirous

1. If prior to desire

And without desire there were a desirous one,
Desire would depend on him.

Desire would exist when there is a desirous one.

2. Were there no desirous one, moreover,

Where would desire occur?

Whether or not desire or the desirous one exist,
The analysis would be the same.

3. Desire and the desirous one
Cannot arise together.

In that case, desire and the desirous one
Would not be mutually contingent.

4. In identity there is no simultaneity.

A thing is not simultaneous with itself.
But if there is difference,

Then how would there be simultaneity?

Examination of Desire and the Desirous

5. If in identity there were simultaneity,

Then it could occur without association.

If in difference there were simultaneity,

It could occur without association.

6. If in difference there were simultaneity,

How could desire and the desirous one,

Being different, be established?

If they were, they would be simultaneous.

7. If desire and the desirous one
Are established as different,

Then why would you think
That they are simultaneous?

8. Since difference is not established,

If you assert that they are simultaneous,

Since they are established as simultaneous,

Do you also assert that they are different?

9. Since nothing different has been established,

If one is asserting simultaneity,

Which different thing

Do you want to say is simultaneous?

10. Thus desire and the desirous one

Cannot be established as simultaneous or not
simultaneous.

So, like desire, nothing whatever
Can be established either as simultaneous or as
nonsimultaneous.

Chapter VII

Examination of the Conditioned

1. If arising were produced,

Then it would also have the three characteristics.

If arising is not produced,

How could the characteristics of the produced exist?

2. If the three, arising, etc., are separate,

They cannot function as the characteristics of the
produced.

But how could they be joined
In one thing simultaneously?

3. If arising, abiding, and ceasing

Have characteristics other than those of the produced,
There would be an infinite regress.

If they don’t, they would not be produced.

4. The arising of arising only gives rise
To the basic arising.

The arising of the basic arising
Gives rise to arising.

5. If, as you say, the arising of arising
Gives rise to the basic arising,

Examination of the Conditioned

How, according to you, does this,

Not arisen from the basic arising, give rise to that?

6. If, as you say, that which is arisen from basic arising
Gives rise to the basis,

How does that nonarisen basis
Give rise to it?

7. If this nonarisen
Could give rise to that,

Then, as you wish,

It will give rise to that which is arising.

8. Just as a butterlamp
Illuminates itself as well as others,

So arising gives rise to itself
And to other arisen things.

9. In the butterlamp and its place,

There is no darkness.

What then does the butterlamp illuminate?

For illumination is the clearing of darkness.

10. If the arising butterlamp
Does not reach darkness,

How could that arising butterlamp
Have cleared the darkness?

11. If the illumination of darkness occurs
Without the butterlamp reaching darkness,

All of the darkness in the world

Should be illuminated.

12. If, when it is illuminated,

The butterlamp illuminates itself and others,
Darkness should, without a doubt,

Conceal itself and others.

THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

13. How could this arising, being nonarisen.

Give rise to itself?

And if it is arisen from another,

Having arisen, what is the need for another arising?

14. The arisen, the nonarisen, and that which is arising
Do not arise in any way at all.

Thus they should be understood

Just like the gone, the not-gone, and the going.

15. When there is arising but not yet
That which is arising,

How can we say that that which is arising
Depends on this arising?

16. Whatever is dependently arisen,

Such a thing is essentially peaceful.

Therefore that which is arising and arising itself
Are themselves peaceful.

17. If a nonarisen entity
Anywhere exists,

That entity would have to arise.

But if it were nonexistent, what could arise?

18. If this arising

Gave rise to that which is arising,

By means of what arising
Does that arising arise?

19. If another arising gives rise to this one.

There would be an infinite regress.

If something nonarisen is arisen,

Then all things could arise in this way.

20. Neither an existent nor a nonexistent
Can be properly said to arise.

Examination of the Conditioned

As it is taught before with

“For neither an existent nor a nonexistent.”

21. The arising of a ceasing thing
Is not tenable.

But to say that it is not ceasing
Is not tenable for anything.

22. A static existent does not endure.

A nonstatic existent does not endure.

Stasis does not endure.

What nonarisen can endure?

23. The endurance of a ceasing entity
Is not tenable.

But to say that it is not ceasing
Is not tenable for anything.

24. Inasmuch as the nature of all things
Is aging and death,

Without aging and death,

What existents can endure?

25. Stasis cannot endure through itself
Or through another stasis.

Just as arising cannot arise from itself
Or from another arising.

26. The ceasing of what has ceased does not happen.
What has not yet ceased does not cease.

Nor does that which is ceasing.

What nonarisen can cease?

27. The cessation of what is static
Is not tenable .

Nor is the cessation of
Something not static tenable.

THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

28. Being static does not cease
Through being static itself.

Nor does being static cease

Through another instance of being static.

29. When the arising of any entity
Is not tenable,

Then the cessation of any entity
Is not tenable.

30. For an existent thing
Cessation is not tenable.

A single thing being an entity and
A nonentity is not tenable.

31 . Moreover, for a nonentity.

Cessation would be untenable.

Just as a second beheading
Cannot be performed.

32. Cessation does not cease by means of itself.

Nor does it cease by means of another.

Just as arising cannot arise from itself

Or from another arising.

33. Since arising, ceasing, and abiding

Are not established, there are no compounded things.
If all compounded things are unestablished,

How could the uncompounded be established?

34. Like a dream, like an illusion,

Like a city of Gandharvas,

So have arising, abiding,

And ceasing been explained.

Chapter VIII

Examination of the Agent
and Action

1. This existent agent

Does not perform an existent action.

Nor does some nonexistent agent
Perform some nonexistent action.

2. An existent entity has no activity.

There would also be action without an agent.
An existent entity has no activity.

There would also be agent without action.

3. If a nonexistent agent

Were to perform a nonexistent action,

Then the action would be without a cause
And the agent would be without a cause.

4. Without a cause, the effect and

Its cause will not occur.

Without this, activity and
Agent and action are not possible.

THE TEXT OF MULAMADH YAMAKAKAR1KA

If activity, etc. , are not possible,

Entities and nonentities are not possible.

If there are neither entities nor nonentities,

Effects cannot arise from them.

If there are no effects, liberation and
Paths to higher realms will not exist.

So all of activity
Would be without purpose.

An existent and nonexistent agent
Does not perform an existent and nonexistent action.
Existence and nonexistence cannot pertain to the same
thing.

For how could they exist together?

An actual agent

Does not perform a nonactual action.

Nor by a nonactual one is an actual one performed.
From this, all of those errors would follow.

An existent agent
Does not perform an action that
Is unreal or both real and unreal
As we have already agreed.

A nonexistent agent
Does not perform an action that
Is unreal or both real and unreal
As we have already agreed.

An existent and nonexistent agent
does not perform an action that
Is unreal or both real and unreal
As we have agreed.

Examination of the Agent and Action

12. Action depends upon the agent.

The agent itself depends on action.

One cannot see any way

To establish them differently.

13. From this elimination of agent and action.

One should elucidate appropriation in the same way.

Through action and agent

All remaining things should be understood.

Chapter IX

Examination of the Prior Entity

1. Since sight and hearing, etc., and
Feeling, etc., exist.

He who has and uses them
Must exist prior to those, some say.

2. If there were no existent thing.

How could seeing, etc. , arise?

It follows from this that prior to this,
there is an existent thing.

3. How is an entity existing prior to
Seeing, hearing, etc., and

The felt, etc. ,

Itself known?

4. If it can abide
Without the seen, etc.,

Then, without a doubt,

They can abide without it.

5. Someone is disclosed by something.
Something is disclosed by someone.
Without something how can someone exist?
Without someone how can something exist?

Examination of the Prior Entity 27

6. While prior to all of seeing, etc..

That prior entity doesn’t exist,

Through seeing, etc., by another one,

That other one becomes disclosed.

7. If prior to all of seeing, etc. ,

No prior entity exists,

How could an entity prior
To each seeing exist?

8. If the seer itself is the hearer itself.

And the feeler itself, at different times.

Prior to each of these he would have to arise.

But this makes no sense.

9. If the seer itself is distinct.

The hearer is distinct and the feeler is distinct.

Then when there is a seer there would also be a hearer,
And there would have to be many selves.

10. Seeing and hearing, etc..

And feeling, etc.,

And that from which these are arisen:

There is no existent there.

1 1 . Seeing and hearing, etc. ,

And feeling, etc..

If that to which they belong does not exist,
they themselves do not exist.

12. For whomever prior to.

Simultaneous with, or after seeing, etc., there is
nothing.

For such a one, assertions like “it exists” or “it does not
exist”—

Such conceptions will cease.

Chapter X

Examination of Fire and Fuel

If fuel were fire

Then agent and action would be one.

If fire were different from fuel,

Then it could arise without fuel.

It would be forever aflame;

Flames could be ignited without a cause.

Its beginning would be meaningless.

In that case, it would be without any action.

Since it would not depend on another
Ignition would be without a cause.

If it were eternally in flames,

Starting it would be meaningless.

So, if one thinks that

That which is burning is the fuel.

If it is just this,

How is this fuel being burned?

If they are different, and if one not yet connected isn’t
connected,

The not yet burned will not be burned.

Examination of Fire and Fuel

They will not cease. If they do not cease
Then it will persist with its own characteristic.

6. Just as a man and a woman

Connect to one another as man and woman.

So if fire were different from fuel.

Fire and fuel would have to be fit for connection.

7. And, if fire and fuel
Preclude each other,

Then fire being different from fuel,

It must still be asserted that they connect.

8. If fire depends on fuel.

And fuel depends on fire,

On what are fire and fuel established as dependent?
Which one is established first?

9. If fire depends on fuel,

It would be the establishment of an established fire.
And the fuel could be fuel
Without any fire.

10. If that on which an entity depends
Is established on the basis

Of the entity depending on it.

What is established in dependence on what?

11. What entity is established through dependence?

If it is not established, then how could it depend?
However, if it is established merely through

dependence,

That dependence makes no sense.

12. Fire is not dependent upon fuel.

Fire is not independent of fuel.

Fuel is not dependent upon fire.

Fuel is not independent of fire.

30 THE TEXT OF MOLAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

13. Fire does not come from something else,

Nor is fire in fuel itself.

Moreover, fire and the rest are just like
The moved, the not-moved, and the goer.

14. Fuel is not fire.

Fire does not arise from anything different from fuel.
Fire does not possess fuel.

Fuel is not in fire, nor vice versa.

15. Through discussion of fire and fuel,

The self and the aggregates, the pot and cloth
All together,

Without remainder have been explained.

16. I do not think that

Those who teach that the self

Is the same as or different from the entities

Understand the meaning of the doctrine.

Chapter XI

Examination of the Initial and
Final Limits

1. When asked about the beginning,

The Great Sage said that nothing is known of it.
Cyclic existence is without end and beginning.

So there is no beginning or end.

2. Where there is no beginning or end,

How could there be a middle?

It follows that thinking about this in terms of
Prior, posterior, and simultaneous is not appropriate.

3. If birth came first,

And then old age and death.

Then birth would be ageless and deathless.

And a deathless one would be born.

4. If birth were to come after,

And old age and death first,

How could there be a causeless aging and death
Of one not bom?

32 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

5. Birth and age and death
Cannot occur at one time.

Then what is being born would be dying
And both would occur without cause.

6. When the series of the prior, simultaneous, and

posterior
Is not possible,

Why are you led to posit
This birth, aging, and death?

7. Not only is cyclic existence itself without beginning,
No existent has a beginning:

Neither cause and effect;

Nor character and characterized . . .

8. Nor feeling and the feeler;

Whatever there is:

All entities

Are without beginning.

Chapter XII

Examination of Suffering

1. Some say suffering is self-produced,

Or produced from another or from both.

Or that it arises without a cause.

It is not the kind of thing to be produced.

2. If suffering came from itself,

Then it would not arise dependently.

For those aggregates

Arise in dependence on these aggregates.

3. If those were different from these,

Or if these were different from those,
Suffering could arise from another.

These would arise from those others.

4. . If suffering were caused by a person himself,
Then who is that person —

By whom suffering is caused —

Who exists distinct from suffering?

5. If suffering comes from another person,
Then who is that person —

When suffering is given by another —

Who exists distinct from suffering?

34 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

6. If another person causes suffering,

Who is that other one

Who bestowed that suffering,

Distinct from suffering?

7. When self-caused is not established,

How could suffering be caused by another?
Whoever caused the suffering of another
Must have caused his own suffering.

8. No suffering is self-caused.

Nothing causes itself.

If another is not self-made,

How could suffering be caused by another?

9. If suffering were caused by each,

Suffering could be caused by both.

Not caused by self or by other,

How could suffering be uncaused?

10. Not only does suffering not exist
In any of the fourfold ways:

No external entity exists
In any of the fourfold ways.

Chapter XIII

Examination of Compounded
Phenomena

The Victorious Conqueror has said that whatever
Is deceptive is false.

Compounded phenomena are all deceptive.
Therefore they are all false.

If whatever is deceptive is false,

What deceives?

The Victorious Conqueror has said about this
That emptiness is completely true.

All things lack entitihood,

Since change is perceived.

There is nothing without entity
Because all things have emptiness.

If there is no entitihood,

What changes?

If there were entity,

How could it be correct that something changes?

36 THE TEXT OF MOLAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

5. A thing itself does not change.

Something different does not change.

Because a young man doesn’t grow old,

And because and an old man doesn’t grow old either.

6. If a thing itself changed,

Milk itself would be curd.

Or curd would have come to be
An entity different from milk.

7. If there were even a trifle nonempty,

Emptiness itself would be but a trifle.

But not even a trifle is nonempty.

How could emptiness be an entity?

8. The victorious ones have said

That emptiness is the relinquishing of all views.

For whomever emptiness is a view,

That one will accomplish nothing.

Chapter XIV

Examination of Connection

The seen, seeing, and the seer:

These three — pairwise or
All together —

Do not connect to one another.

Similarly desire, the desirous one, the object of desire.

And the remaining afflictions

And the remaining sources of perception

Are understood in this threefold way.

Since different things connect to one another,

But in seeing, etc..

There is no difference,

They cannot connect.

Not only in seeing, etc. ,

Is there no such difference:

When one thing and another are simultaneous.

It is also not tenable that there is difference.

A different thing depends on a different thing for its
difference.

Without a different thing, a different thing wouldn’t be
different.

38 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

It is not tenable for that which depends on something
else

To be different from it.

6. If a different thing were different from a different

thing,

Without a different thing, a different thing could exist.
But without that different thing, that different thing
does not exist.

It follows that it doesn’t exist.

7. Difference is not in a different thing.

Nor is it in a nondifferent thing.

If difference does not exist,

Neither different nor identical things exist.

8. That does not connect to itself.

Nor do different things connect to one another.
Neither connection nor
Connected nor connector exist.

Chapter XV

Examination of Essence

1 . Essence arising from

Causes and conditions makes no sense.

If essence came from causes and conditions,
Then it would be fabricated.

2. How could it be appropriate

For fabricated essence to come to be?
Essence itself is not artificial
And does not depend on another.

3. If there is no essence,

How can there be difference in entities?

The essence of difference in entities
Is what is called the entity of difference.

4. Without having essence or otherness-essence,
How can there be entities?

If there are essences and entities
Entities are established.

5. If the entity is not established,

A nonentity is not established.

An entity that has become different
Is a nonentity, people say.

40 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

6. Those who see essence and essential difference
And entities and nonentities.

They do not see

The truth taught by the Buddha.

7. The Victorious One, through knowledge
Of reality and unreality,

In the Discourse to Katydydna ,

Refuted both “it is” and “it is not.”

8. If existence were through essence,

Then there would be no nonexistence.

A change in essence

Could never be tenable.

9. If there is no essence,

What could become other?

If there is essence,

What could become other?

10. To say “it is” is to grasp for permanence.

To say “it is not” is to adopt the view of nihilism.

Therefore a wise person

Does not say “exists” or “does not exist.”

11. “Whatever exists through its essence
Cannot be nonexistent” is eternalism.

“It existed before but doesn’t now”

Entails the error of nihilism.

Chapter XVI

Examination of Bondage

1 . If compounded phenomena transmigrate ,

They do not transmigrate as permanent.

If they are impermanent they do not transmigrate.

The same approach applies to sentient beings.

2. If someone transmigrates,

Then if, when sought in the fivefold way
In the aggregates and in the sense spheres and in the
elements,

He is not there, what transmigrates?

3. If one transmigrates from grasping to grasping, then
One would be nonexistent.

Neither existent nor grasping,

Who could this transmigrator be?

4. How could compounded phenomena pass into nirvana?
That would not be tenable.

How could a sentient being pass into nirvana?

That would not be tenable.

All compounded phenomena, as arising and ceasing
things,

Are not bound and not released.

5 .

42 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

For this reason a sentient being
Is not bound, not released.

6. If grasping were bondage,

Then the one who is grasping would not be bound.

But one who is not grasping is not bound.

In what circumstances will one be bound?

7. If prior to binding
There is a bound one,

There would be bondage, but there isn’t.

The rest has been explained by the gone, the not-gone,
and the goer.

8. Whoever is bound is not released.

Whoever is not bound does not get released.

If a bound one were being released,

Bondage and release would occur simultaneously.

9. “I, without grasping, will pass beyond sorrow,

And I will attain nirvana,” one says.

Whoever grasps like this

Has a great grasping.

10. When you can’t bring about nirvana,

Nor the purification of cyclic existence,

What is cyclic existence,

And what is the nirvana you examine?

Chapter XVII

Examination of Actions and
Their Fruits

1. Self-restraint and benefiting others

With a compassionate mind is the Dharma.

This is the seed for

Fruits in this and future lives.

2. The Unsurpassed Sage has said

That actions are either intention or intentional.

The varieties of these actions

Have been announced in many ways.

3. Of these, what is called “intention”

Is mental desire.

What is called “intentional”

Comprises the physical and verbal.

4. Speech and action and all

Kinds of unabandoned and abandoned actions,
And resolve
As well as . . .

44 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

5. Virtuous- and nonvirtuous actions
Derived from pleasure,

As well as intention and morality:

These seven are the kinds of action.

6. If until the time of ripening

Action had to remain in place, it would have to be
permanent.

If it has ceased, then having ceased,

How will a fruit arise?

7. As for a continuum, such as the sprout,

It comes from a seed.

From that arises the fruit. Without a seed,

It would not come into being.

8. Since from the seed comes the continuum,
and from the continuum comes the fruit,

The seed precedes the fruit.

Therefore there is neither nonexistence nor
permanence.

9. So, in a mental continuum,

From a preceding intention

A consequent mental state arises.

Without this, it would not arise.

10. Since from the intention comes the continuum,
And from the continuum the fruit arises,

Action precedes the fruit.

Therefore there is neither nonexistence nor
permanence.

11 . The ten pure paths of action

Are the method of realizing the Dharma.

These fruits of the Dharma in this and other lives
Are the five pleasures.

Examination of Actions and Their Fruits

12. If such an analysis were advanced,

There would be many great errors.

Therefore, this analysis

Is not tenable here.

13. I will then explain what is tenable here:

The analysis propounded by all
Buddhas, self-conquerors

And disciples according to which . . .

14. Action is like an uncancelled promissory note
And like a debt.

Of the realms it is fourfold.

Moreover, its nature is neutral.

15. By abandoning, that is not abandoned.

Abandonment occurs through meditation.

Therefore, through the nonexpired,

The fruit of action arises.

16. If abandonment occurred through abandoning, and
If action were destroyed through transformation.

The destruction of action, etc. ,

And other errors would arise.

17. From all these actions in a realm,

Whether similar or dissimilar,

At the moment of birth

Only one will arise.

18. In this visible world.

All actions of the two kinds,

Each comprising action and the unexpired separately,
Will remain while ripening.

19. That fruit, if extinction or death
Occurs, ceases.

THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

Regarding this, a distinction between the stainless
And the stained is drawn.

Emptiness and nonannihilation;

Cyclic existence and nonpermanence:

That action is nonexpiring
Is taught by the Buddha.

Because action does not arise.

It is seen to be without essence.

Because it is not arisen,

It follows that it is nonexpiring.

If action had an essence.

It would, without doubt, be eternal.

Action would be uncreated.

Because there can be no creation of what is eternal.

If an action were uncreated.

Fear would arise of encountering something not done.
And the error of not preserving
One’s vows would arise.

All conventions would then
Be contradicted, without doubt.

It would be impossible to draw a distinction
Between virtue and evil.

Whatever is mature would mature
Time and time again.

If there were essence, this would follow,

Because action would remain in place.

While this action has affliction as its nature
This affliction is not real in itself.

If affliction is not in itself,

How can action be real in itself?

Examination of Actions and Their Fruits

27. Action and affliction

Are taught to be the conditions that produce bodies.
If action and affliction

Are empty, what would one say about bodies?

28. Obstructed by ignorance,

And consumed by passion, the experiencer
Is neither different from the agent
Nor identical with it.

29. Since this action

Is not arisen from a condition,

Nor arisen causelessly,

It follows that there is no agent.

30. If there is no action and agent,

Where could the fruit of action be?

Without a fruit.

Where is there an experiencer?

31. Just as the teacher, by magic,

Makes a magical illusion, and
By that illusion

Another illusion is created,

32. In that way are an agent and his action:

The agent is like the illusion.

The action

Is like the illusion’s illusion.

33. Afflictions, actions, bodies.

Agents and fruits are

Like a city of Gandharvas and
Like a mirage or a dream.

Chapter XVIII

Examination of Self and Entities

1. If the self were the aggregates,

It would have arising and ceasing (as properties).

If it were different from the aggregates,

It would not have the characteristics of the aggregates.

2. If there were no self,

Where would the self’s (properties) be?

From the pacification of the self and what belongs to it,
One abstains from grasping onto “I” and “mine.”

3. One who does not grasp onto “I” and “mine,”

That one does not exist.

One who does not grasp onto “I” and “mine,”

He does not perceive.

4. When views of “I” and “mine” are extinguished,
Whether with respect to the internal or external,

The appropriator ceases.

This having ceased, birth ceases.

5. Action and misery having ceased, there is nirvana.
Action and misery come from conceptual thought.

This comes from mental fabrication.

Fabrication ceases through emptiness.

Examination of Self and Entities

That there is a self has been taught,

And the doctrine of no-self,

By the buddhas, as well as the
Doctrine of neither self nor nonself.

What language expresses is nonexistent.

The sphere of thought is nonexistent.

Unarisen and unceased, like nirvana
Is the nature of things.

Everything is real and is not real,

Both real and not real,

Neither real nor not real.

This is Lord Buddha’s teaching.

Not dependent on another, peaceful and
Not fabricated by mental fabrication,

Not thought, without distinctions,

That is the character of reality (that-ness).

Whatever comes into being dependent on another
Is not identical to that thing.

Nor is it different from it.

Therefore it is neither nonexistent in time nor
permanent.

By the buddhas, patrons of the world,

This immortal truth is taught:

Without identity, without distinction;

Not nonexistent in time, not permanent.

When the fully enlightened ones do not appear,
And when the disciples have disappeared,

The wisdom of the self-enlightened ones
Will arise completely without a teacher.

Chapter XIX

Examination of Time

1. If the present and the future
Depend on the past,

Then the present and the future
Would have existed in the past.

2. If the present and the future
Did not exist there,

How could the present and the future
Be dependent upon it?

3. If they are not dependent upon the past,
Neither of the two would be established.
Therefore neither the present

Nor the future would exist.

4. By the same method,

The other two divisions — past and future,
Upper, lower, middle, etc,,

Unity, etc., should be understood.

5. A nonstatic time is not grasped.

Nothing one could grasp as
Stationary time exists.

If time is not grasped, how is it known?

Examination of Time

6. If time depends on an entity,

Then without an entity how could time exist?
There is no existent entity.

So how can time exist?

Chapter XX

Examination of Combination

1. If, arising from the combination of
Causes and conditions,

The effect is in the combination,

How could it arise from the combination?

2. If, arising from the combination of
Causes and conditions,

The effect is not in the combination,

How could it arise from the combination?

3. ' If the effect is in the combination

Of causes and conditions,

Then it should be grasped in the combination.
But it is not grasped in the combination.

4. If the effect is not in the combination
Of causes and conditions,

Then actual causes and conditions
Would be like noncauses and nonconditions.

5. If the cause, in having its effect,

Ceased to have its causal status.

Examination of Combination

There would be two kinds of cause:

With and without causal status.

6. If the cause, not yet having
Produced its effect, ceased,

Then having arisen from a ceased cause.

The effect would be without a cause.

7. If the effect were to arise
Simultaneously with the collection,

Then the produced and the producer
Would arise simultaneously.

8. If the effect were to arise
Prior to the combination.

Then, without causes and conditions,

The effect would arise causelessly.

9. If, the cause having ceased, the effect

Were a complete transformation of the cause,
Then a previously arisen cause
Would arise again.

10. How can a cause, having ceased and dissolved,
Give rise to a produced effect?

How can a cause joined with its effect produce it
If they persist together?

1 1 . Moreover, if not joined with its cause,

What effect can be made to arise?

Neither seen nor unseen by causes
Are effects produced.

12. There is never a simultaneous connection
Of a past effect

With a past, a nonarisen,

Or an arisen cause.

THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

13. There is never a simultaneous connection
Of an arisen effect

With a past, a nonarisen,

Or an arisen cause.

14. There is never a simultaneous connection
Of a nonarisen effect

With a past, a nonarisen,

Or an arisen cause.

15. Without connecting,

How can a cause produce an effect?
Where there is connection,

How can a cause produce an effect?

16. If the cause is empty of an effect,

How can it produce an effect?

If the cause is not empty of an effect,

How can it produce an effect?

17. A nonempty effect does not arise.

The nonempty would not cease.

This nonempty would be

The nonceased and the nonarisen.

18. How can the empty arise?

How can the empty cease?

The empty will hence also

Be the nonceased and nonarisen.

19. For cause and effect to be identical
Is not tenable.

For cause and effect to be different
Is not tenable.

20. If cause and effect were identical,
Produced and producer would be identical.

Examination of Combination

If cause and effect were different.

Cause and non-cause would be alike.

21. If an effect had entitihood,

What could have caused it to arise?

If an effect had no entitihood,

What could have caused it to arise?

22. If something is not producing an effect,

It is not tenable to attribute causality.

If it is not tenable to attribute causality,

Then of what will the effect be?

23. If the combination

Of causes and conditions
Is not self-produced.

How does it produce an effect?

24. Therefore, not made by combination.

And not without a combination can the effect arise.
If there is no effect.

Where can there be a combination of conditions?

Chapter XXI

Examination of Becoming
and Destruction

1. Destruction does not occur without becoming.
It does not occur together with it.

Becoming does not occur without destruction.
It does not occur together with it.

2. How could there be destruction
Without becoming?

How could there be death without birth?
There is no destruction without becoming.

3. How could destruction and becoming
Occur simultaneously?

Death and birth

Do not occur simultaneously.

4. How could there be becoming
Without destruction?

For impermanence
Is never absent from entities.

Examination of Becoming and Destruction

5. How could destruction

And becoming occur simultaneously?

Just as birth and death
Do not occur simultaneously.

6. How, when things cannot
Be established as existing,

With, or apart from one another,

Can they be established at all?

7. There is no becoming of the disappeared.
There is no becoming of the nondisappeared.
There is no destruction of the disappeared.
There is no destruction of the nondisappeared.

8. When no entities exist,

There is no becoming or destruction.

Without becoming and destruction,

There are no existent entities.

9. It is not tenable for the empty
To become or to be destroyed.

It is not tenable for the nonempty
To become or to be destroyed.

10. It is not tenable

That destruction and becoming are identical.

It is not tenable

That destruction and becoming are different.

11 . If you think you see both
Destruction and becoming,

Then you see destruction and becoming
Through impaired vision.

12. An entity does not arise from an entity.

An entity does not arise from a nonentity.

A nonentity does not arise from a nonentity.

A nonentity does not arise from an entity.

THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

13. An entity does not arise from itself.

It is not arisen from another.

It is not arisen from itself and another.

How can it be arisen?

14. If one accepts the existence of entities,

Permanence and the view of complete nonexistence

follow.

For these entities

Must be both permanent and impermanent.

15. If one accepts the existence of entities
Nonexistence and permanence will not follow.
Cyclic existence is the continuous
Becoming and destruction of causes and effects.

16. If cyclic existence is the continuous
Becoming and destruction of causes and effects,
Then from the nonarising of the destroyed
Follows the nonexistence of cause.

17. If entities exist with entitihood,

Then their nonexistence would make no sense.

But at the time of nirvaqa,

Cyclic existence ceases completely, having been
pacified.

18. If the final one has ceased,

The existence of a first one makes no sense.

If the final one has not ceased,

The existence of a first one makes no sense.

19. If when the final one was ceasing,

Then the first was arising,

The one ceasing would be one.

The one arising would be another.

Examination of Becoming and Destruction

20. If, absurdly, the one arising

And the one ceasing were the same,

Then whoever is dying with the aggregates
Is also arising.

21. Since the series of cyclic existence is not evident
In the three times,

If it is not in the three times.

How could there be a series of cyclic existence?

Chapter XXII

Examination of the Tathagata

Neither the aggregates, nor different from the
aggregates,

The aggregates are not in him, nor is he in the
aggregates.

The Tathagata does not possess the aggregates.
What is the Tathagata?

If the Buddha depended on the aggregates,

He would not exist through an essence.

Not existing through an essence,

How could he exist through otherness-essence?

Whatever is dependent on another entity,
Its selfhood is not appropriate.

It is not tenable that what lacks a self
Could be a Tathagata.

If there is no essence.

How could there be otherness-essence?

Without possessing essence or otherness-essence,
What is the Tathagata?

Examination of the Tathagata

5. If without depending on the aggregates
There were a Tathagata,

Then now he would be depending on them.
Therefore he would exist through dependence.

6. Inasmuch as there is no Tathagata
Dependent upon the aggregates,

How could something that is not dependent
Come to be so?

7. There is no appropriation.

There is no appropriator.

Without appropriation

How can there be a Tathagata?

8. Having been sought in the fivefold way.

What, being neither identical nor different,

Can be thought to be the Tathagata
Through grasping?

9. Whatever grasping there is
Does not exist through essence.

And when something does not exist through itself.
It can never exist through otherness-essence.

10. Thus grasping and grasper
Together are empty in every respect.

How can an empty Tathagata

Be known through the empty?

11. “Empty” should not be asserted.

“Nonempty” should not be asserted.

Neither both nor neither should be asserted.

They are only used nominally.

12. How can the tetralemma of permanent and

impermanent, etc.,

Be true of the peaceful?

62 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

How can the tetralemma of finite, infinite, etc.,

Be true of the peaceful?

13. One who grasps the view that the Tathagata exists,
Having seized the Buddha,

Constructs conceptual fabrications
About one who has achieved nirvana.

14. Since he is by nature empty,

The thought that the Buddha
Exists or does not exist

After nirvana is not appropriate.

15. Those who develop mental fabrications with regard to

the Buddha,

Who has gone beyond all fabrications.

As a consequence of those cognitive fabrications,

Fail to see the Tathagata.

16. Whatever is the essence of the Tathagata,

That is the essence of the world.

The Tathagata has no essence.

The world is without essence.

Chapter XXIII
Examination of Errors

1. Desire, hatred and confusion all
Arise from thought, it is said.

They all depend on

The pleasant, the unpleasant, and errors.

2. Since whatever depends on the pleasant and the

unpleasant

Does not exist through an essence,

The defilements
Do not really exist.

3. The self’s existence or nonexistence
Has in no way been established.

Without that, how could the defilements’
Existence or nonexistence be established?

4. The defilements are somebody’s.

But that one has not been established.

Without that possessor,

The defilements are nobody’s.

5. View the defilements as you view your self:
They are not in the defiled in the fivefold way.

THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

View the defiled as you view your self:

It is not in the defilements in the fivefold way.

The pleasant, the unpleasant, and the errors
Do not exist through essence.

Which pleasant, unpleasant, and errors
could the defilements depend upon?

Form, sound, taste, touch,

Smell, and concepts of things: These six
Are thought of as the foundation of
Desire, hatred, and confusion.

Form, sound, taste, touch,

Smell, and concepts of things: These six
Should be seen as only like a city of the Gandharvas
and

Like a mirage or a dream.

How could the

Pleasant and unpleasant arise
In those that are like an illusory person
And like a reflection?

We say that the unpleasant
Is dependent upon the pleasant,

Since without depending on the pleasant there is none.
It follows that the pleasant is not tenable.

We say that the pleasant
Is dependent upon the unpleasant.

Without the unpleasant there wouldn’t be any.

It follows that the unpleasant is not tenable.

Where there is no pleasant,

How can there be desire?

Where there is no unpleasant,

How can there be anger?

Examination of Errors

13. If to grasp onto the view

“The impermanent is permanent” were an error,

Since in emptiness there is nothing impermanent,

How could that grasping be an error?

14. If to grasp onto the view

“The impermanent is permanent” were an error,

Why isn’t grasping onto the view

“In emptiness there is nothing impermanent” an error?

15. That by means of which there is grasping, and the

grasping,

And the grasper, and all that is grasped:

All are being relieved.

It follows that there is no grasping.

16. If there is no grasping.

Whether erroneous or otherwise,

Who will come to be in error?

Who will have no error?

17. Error does not develop
In one who is in error.

Error does not develop
In one who is not in error.

18. Error does not develop

In one in whom error is arising.

In whom does error develop?

Examine this on your own!

19. If error is not arisen,

How could it come to exist?

If error has not arisen,

How could one be in error?

20. Since an entity does not arise from itself,

Nor from another,

THE TEXT OF MVLAMADH YAMAKAKARIKA

Nor from another and from itself.

How could one be in error?

If the self and the pure,

The permanent and the blissful existed,

The self, the pure, the permanent,

And the blissful would not be deceptive.

If the self and the pure,

The permanent and the blissful did not exist,
The nonself, the impure, the permanent,
And suffering would not exist.

Thus, through the cessation of error
Ignorance ceases.

When ignorance ceases

The compounded phenomena, etc., cease.

If someone’s defilements
Existed through his essence,

How could they be relinquished?

Who could relinquish the existent?

If someone’s defilements

Did not exist through his essence,

How could they be relinquished?

Who could relinquish the nonexistent?

Chapter XXIV

Examination of the Four
Noble Truths

1. If all of this is empty,

Neither arising nor ceasing,

Then for you, it follows that

The Four Noble Truths do not exist.

2. If the Four Noble Truths do not exist,

Then knowledge, abandonment,

Meditation and manifestation

Will be completely impossible.

3. If these things do not exist,

The four fruits will not arise.

Without the four fruits, there will be no attainers of the
fruits.

Nor will there be the faithful.

4. If so, the spiritual community will not exist.

Nor will the eight kinds of person.

If the Four Noble Truths do not exist,

There will be no true Dharma.

68 THE TEXT OF MOLAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

5. If there is no doctrine and spiritual community,

How can there be a Buddha?

If emptiness is conceived in this way,

The three jewels are contradicted.

6. Hence you assert that there are no real fruits.

And no Dharma. The Dharma itself

And the conventional truth
Will be contradicted.

7. We say that this understanding of yours
Of emptiness and the purpose of emptiness
And of the significance of emptiness is incorrect.

As a consequence you are harmed by it.

8. The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma
Is based on two truths:

A truth of worldly convention
And an ultimate truth.

9. Those who do not understand

The distinction drawn between these two truths

Do not understand

The Buddha’s profound truth.

10. Without a foundation in the conventional truth.

The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught.
Without understanding the significance of the ultimate,
Liberation is not achieved.

11. By a misperception of emptiness

A person of little intelligence is destroyed.

Like a snake incorrectly seized
Or like a spell incorrectly cast.

12. For that reason — that the Dharma is

Deep and difficult to understand and to learn —

The Buddha’s mind despaired of
Being able to teach it.

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

13. You have presented fallacious refutations
That are not relevant to emptiness.

Your confusion about emptiness

Does not belong to me.

14. For him to whom emptiness is clear,
Everything becomes clear.

For him to whom emptiness is not clear,
Nothing becomes clear.

15. When you foist on us
All of your errors

You are like a man who has mounted his horse
And has forgotten that very horse.

16. If you perceive the existence of all things
In terms of their essence,

Then this perception of all things
Will be without the perception of causes and
conditions.

17. Effects and causes
And agent and action

And conditions and arising and ceasing
And effects will be rendered impossible.

18. Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness.

That, being a dependent designation,

Is itself the middle way.

19. Something that is not dependently arisen,

Such a thing does not exist.

Therefore a nonempty thing

Does not exist.

70 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

20. If all this were nonempty, as in your view,
There would be no arising and ceasing.

Then the Four Noble Truths

Would become nonexistent.

21. If it is not dependently arisen,

How could suffering come to be?

Suffering has been taught to be impermanent,
And so cannot come from its own essence.

22. If something comes from its own essence,
How could it ever be arisen?

It follows that if one denies emptiness
There can be no arising (of suffering).

23. If suffering had an essence,

Its cessation would not exist.

So if an essence is posited,

One denies cessation.

24. If the path had an essence,

Cultivation would not be appropriate.

If this path is indeed cultivated,

It cannot have an essence.

25. If suffering, arising, and
Ceasing are nonexistent,

By what path could one seek
To obtain the cessation of suffering?

26. If nonunderstanding comes to be
Through its essence,

How will understanding arise?

Isn’t essence stable?

27. In the same way* the activities of
Relinquishing, realizing, and meditating

Examination of the Four Noble Truths 71

And the four fruits
Would not be possible.

28. For an essentialist,

Since the fruits through their essence
Are already unrealized,

In what way could one attain them?

29. Without the fruits, there are no attainers of the fruits,
Or enterers. From this it follows that

The eight kinds of persons do not exist.

If these don’t exist, there is no spiritual community.

30. From the nonexistence of the Noble Truths
Would follow the nonexistence of the true doctrine.

If there is no doctrine and no spiritual community,

How could a Buddha arise?

31. For you, it would follow that a Buddha
Arises independent of enlightenment.

And for you, enlightenment would arise
Independent of a Buddha.

32. For you, one who through his essence
Was unenlightened,

Even by practicing the path to enlightenment
Could not achieve enlightenment.

33. Moreover, one could never perform
Right or wrong actions.

If this were all nonempty what could one do?

That with an essence cannot be produced.

34. For you, from neither right nor wrong actions
Would the fruit arise.

If the fruit arose from right or wrong actions, ,
According to you, it wouldn’t exist.

THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

35. If, for you, a fruit arose
From right or wrong actions,

Then, having arisen from right or wrong actions.
How could that fruit be nonempty?

36. If dependent arising is denied.

Emptiness itself is rejected.

This would contradict

All of the worldly conventions.

37. If emptiness itself is rejected,

No action will be appropriate.

There would be action which did not begin,

And there would be agent without action.

38. If there is essence, the, whole world
Will be unarising, unceasing,

And static. The entire phenomenal world
Would be immutable.

39. If it (the world) were not empty,

Then action would be without profit.

The act of ending suffering and

Abandoning misery and defilement would not exist.

40. Whoever sees dependent arising
Also sees suffering

And its arising

And its cessation as well as the path.

Chapter XXV

Examination of Nirvana

If all this is empty,

Then there is no arising or passing away.

By the relinquishing or ceasing of what
Does one wish nirvaoa to arise?

If all this is nonempty,

Then there is no arising or passing away.

By the relinquishing or ceasing of what
Does one wish nirvana to arise?

Unrelinquished, unattained,

Unannihilated, not permanent,

Unarisen, unceased:

This is how nirvana is described.

Nirvana is not existent.

It would then have the characteristics of age and death.
There is no existent entity
Without age and death.

If nirvana were existent,

Nirvana would be compounded.

A noncompounded existent
Does not exist anywhere.

74 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

6. If nirvana were existent,

How could nirvana be nondependent?

A nondependent existent
Does not exist anywhere.

7. If nirvapa were not existent,

How could it be appropriate for it to be nonexistent?
Where nirvapa is not existent,

It cannot be a nonexistent.

8. If nirvapa were not existent,

How could nirvapa be nondependent?

Whatever is nondependent
Is not nonexistent.

9. That which comes and goes
Is dependent and changing.

That, when it is not dependent and changing,

Is taught to be nirvapa.

10. The teacher has spoken of relinquishing
Becoming and dissolution.

Therefore, it makes sense that

Nirvapa is neither existent nor nonexistent.

11. If nirvapa were both
Existent and nonexistent,

Passing beyond would, impossibly,

Be both existent and nonexistent.

12. If nirvapa were both
Existent and nonexistent,

Nirvapa would not be nondependent.

Since it would depend on both of these.

1 3 . How could nirvapa

Be both existent and nonexistent?

Nirvapa is uncompounded.

Both existents and nonexistents are compounded.

Examination of Nirvana

14. How could nirvapa

Be both existent and nonexistent?

These two cannot be in the same place.

Like light and darkness.

15. Nirvana is said to be

Neither existent nor nonexistent.

If the existent and the nonexistent were established,
This would be established.

16. If nirvana is

Neither existent nor nonexistent,

Then by whom is it expounded
“Neither existent nor nonexistent”?

17. Having passed into nirvana, the Victorious Conqueror
Is neither said to be existent

Nor said to be nonexistent.

Neither both nor neither are said.

18. So, when the victorious one abides, he
Is neither said to be existent

Nor said to be nonexistent.

Neither both nor neither are said.

19. There is not the slightest difference
Between cyclic existence and nirvana.

There is not the slightest difference
Between nirvana and cyclic existence.

20. Whatever is the limit of nirvana,

That is the limit of cyclic existence.

There is not even the slightest difference between
them,

Or even the subtlest thing.

21 . Views that after cessation there is a limit, etc. ,

And that it is permanent, etc.,

THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKAR1KA

Depend upon nirvana, the final limit,

And the prior limit.

22. Since all existents are empty,

What is finite or infinite?

What is finite and infinite?

What is neither finite nor infinite?

23. What is identical and what is different?

What is permanent and what is impermanent?
What is both permanent and impermanent?
What is neither?

24. The pacification of all objectification
And the pacification of illusion:

No Dharma was taught by the Buddha
At any time, in any place, to any person.

Chapter XXVI

Examination of the Twelve Links

1. Wrapped in the darkness of ignorance,

One performs the three kinds of actions
Which as dispositions impel one

To continue to future existences.

2. Having dispositions as its conditions,
Consciousness enters transmigration.

Once consciousness has entered transmigration,
Name and form come to be.

3. Once name and form come to be,

The six sense spheres come into being.
Depending on the six sense spheres,

Contact comes into being.

4. That is only dependent

On eye and form and apprehension.

Thus, depending on name and form,

And which produces consciousness —

5. That which is assembled from the three —

Eye and form and consciousness,

Is contact. From contact
Feeling comes to be.

78 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

6. Conditioned by feeling is craving.

Craving arises because of feeling.

When it appears, there is grasping,

The four spheres of grasping.

7. When there is grasping, the grasper
Comes into existence.

If he did not grasp,

Then being freed, he would not come into existence.

8. This existence is also the five aggregates.

From existence comes birth,

Old age and death and misery and
Suffering and grief and . . .

9. Confusion and agitation.

All these arise as a consequence of birth.

Thus this entire mass of suffering
Comes into being.

10. The root of cyclic existence is action.

Therefore, the wise one does not act.

Therefore, the unwise is the agent.

The wise one is not because of his insight.

11. With the cessation of ignorance
Action will not arise.

The cessation of ignorance occurs through
Meditation and wisdom.

12. Through the cessation of this and that
This and that will not be manifest.

The entire mass of suffering
Indeed thereby completely ceases.

Chapter XXVII
Examination of Views

1 . The views “in the past I was” or “I was not”

And the view that the world is permanent, etc.,

All of these views

Depend on a prior limit.

2. The view “in the future I will become other” or “I will

not do so”

And that the world is limited, etc.,

All of these views
Depend on a final limit.

3. To say “I was in the past”

Is not tenable.

What existed in the past
Is not identical to this one.

4. According to you, this self is that,

But the appropriator is different.

If it is not the appropriator,

What is your self?

5. Having shown that there is no self
Other than the appropriator,

The appropriator should be the self.

But it is not your self.

80 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

6. Appropriating is not the self.

It arises and ceases.

How can one accept that

Future appropriating is the appropriator?

7. A self that is different

From the appropriating is not tenable.

If it were different, then in a nonappropriator
There should be appropriation. But there isn’t.

8. So it is neither different from the appropriating
Nor identical to the appropriating.

There is no self without appropriation.

But it is not true that it does not exist.

9. To say “in the past I wasn’t”

Would not be tenable.

This person is not different

From whoever existed in previous times.

10. If this one were different,

Then if that one did not exist, I would still exist.

If this were so,

Without death, one would be born.

11. Annihilation and the exhaustion of action would follow;
Different agents’ actions

Would be experienced by each other.

That and other such things would follow.

12. Nothing comes to exist from something that did not

« exist.

From this errors would arise.

The self would be produced

Or, existing, would be without a cause.

13. So, the views “I existed,” “I didn’t exist,”

Both or neither.

Examination of Views

In the past
Are untenable.

To say “in the future I will exist or
Will not exist,”

Such a view is like
Those involving the past.

If a human were a god,

On such a view there would be permanence.

The god would be unborn.

For any permanent thing is unborn.

If a human were different from a god,

On such a view there would be impermanence.

If the human were different from the god,

A continuum would not be tenable.

If one part were divine and
One part were human,

It would be both permanent and impermanent.

That would be irrational.

If it could be established that

It is both permanent and impermanent,

Then it could be established that

It is neither permanent nor impermanent.

If anyone had come from anyplace
And were then to go someplace,

It would follow that cyclic existence was beginningless.
This is not the case.

If nothing is permanent,

What will be impermanent,

Permanent and impermanent,

Or neither?

82 THE TEXT OF MULAMADHYAMAKAKARIKA

21 . If the world were limited,

How could there be another world?

If the world were unlimited,

How could there be another world?

22. Since the continuum of the aggregates
Is like the flame of a butterlamp,

It follows that neither its finitude
Nor its infinitude makes sense.

23. If the previous were disintegrating
And these aggregates, which depend
Upon those aggregates, did not arise,

Then the world would be finite.

24. If the previous were not disintegrating
And these aggregates, which depend
Upon those aggregates, did not arise,

Then the world would be infinite.

25. If one part were finite and
One part were infinite,

Then the world would be finite and infinite.
This would make no sense.

26. How could one think that

One part of the appropriator is destroyed
And one part is not destroyed?

This position makes no sense.

27. How could one think that

One part of the appropriation is destroyed
And one part is not destroyed?

This position makes no sense.

28. If it could be established that
It is both finite and infinite,

Examination of Views

Then it could be established that
It is neither finite nor infinite.

29. So, because all entities are empty,

Which views of permanence, etc., would occur,
And to whom, when, why, and about what
Would they occur at all?

30. I prostrate to Gautama
Who through compassion
Taught the true doctrine,

Which leads to the relinquishing of all views.

PART TWO

The Text and Commentary

Introduction to the Commentary

Nagarjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the second
century C.E., is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and
widely studied Mahayana Buddhist philosopher. He is the founder
of the Madhyamika, or Middle Path schools of Mahayana Bud-
dhism. His considerable corpus includes texts addressed to lay audi-
ences, letters of advice to kings, and the set of penetrating meta-
physical and epistemological treatises that represent the foundation
of the highly sceptical and dialectical analytic philosophical school
known as Madhyamika. Most important of these is his largest and
best known text, Mulamadhyamakakarika (literally Fundamental
Verses on the Middle Way). This text in turn inspires a huge com-
mentarial literature in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, Korean and Japa-
nese. Divergences on interpretation of Mulamadhyamakakarika of-
ten determine the splits between major philosophical schools. So,
for instance, the distinction between two of the three major
Mahayana philosophical schools, Svatantrika-Madhyamika and
Prasangika-Madhyamika reflect, inter alia, distinct readings of this
text, itself taken as fundamental by scholars within each of these
schools . 1

The treatise itself is composed in very terse, often cryptic verses,
with much of the explicit argument suppressed, generating signifi-
cant interpretive challenges. But the uniformity of the philosophi-
cal methodology and the clarity of the central philosophical vision

1. See, for instance, Nagao (1989 and 1991), Lopez (1987), and Cabezon (1992)
for more detailed discussion of Yogacara and Svatantrika readings.

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

expressed in the text together provide a considerable fulcrum for
exegesis. Moreover, the rich commentarial literature generates a
number of distinct and illuminating readings. The central topic of
the text is emptiness — the Buddhist technical term for the lack of
independent existence, inherent existence, or essence in things.
Nagarjuna relentlessly analyzes phenomena or processes that ap-
pear to exist independently and argues that they cannot so exist,
and yet, though lacking the inherent existence imputed to them
either by naive common sense or by sophisticated realistic philo-
sophical theory , 2 these phenomena are not nonexistent — they are,
he argues, conventionally real.

This dual thesis of the conventional reality of phenomena to-
gether with their lack of inherent existence depends upon the com-
plex doctrine of the two truths or two realities — a conventional or
nominal truth and an ultimate truth — and upon a subtle and sur-
prising doctrine regarding their relation. It is, in fact, this sophisti-
cated development of the doctrine of the two truths as a vehicle for
understanding Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology that is
Nagarjuna’s greatest philosophical contribution. If the analysis in
terms of emptiness is the substantive heart of Mulamadhyamaka-
karika, the method of reductio ad absurdum is the methodological
core. Nagarjuna, like Western sceptics, systematically eschews the
defense of positive metaphysical doctrines regarding the nature of
things, arguing rather that any such positive thesis is incoherent
and that, in the end, our conventions and our conceptual frame-
work can never be justified by demonstrating their correspondence

2. It cannot be overemphasized that as far as Nagarjuna — or any Mahayana
Buddhist philosopher, for that matter — is concerned, the view that the things we
perceive and of which we conceive, to the extent that they exist at all, do so
inherently originates as an innate misapprehension and is not the product of sophis-
ticated philosophical theory. That is, we naively and pretheoretically take things as
substantial. This, as Nagarjuna will argue, and as the Buddha himself argued, is the
root delusion that lies at the basis of all human suffering. We can, to be sure, make
sophisticated philosophy out of this. And much of Western and Asian metaphysics
is devoted to that enterprise. But it is important to see that an intellectual rejection
of that sophisticated essentialist metaphysics would not, from the standpoint of
Buddhism, suffice for liberation from suffering. For the innate misapprehension —
the root delusion enshrined in common sense and in much of our language — would
remain. Nagarjuna’s text is aimed primarily against philosophy. But its soterio-
logical goal is the extirpation of the very root of suffering.

Introduction to the Commentary

to an independent reality. Rather, he suggests, what counts as real
depends precisely on our conventions . 3

For Nagarjuna and his followers this point is connected deeply
and directly with the emptiness of phenomena. That is, for in-
stance, when a Madhyamika philosopher says of a table that it is
empty, that assertion by itself is incomplete. It invites the question,
Empty of what? And the answer is, Empty of inherent existence,
or self-nature, or, in more Western terms, essence . 4 Now, to say
that the table is empty is hence simply to say that it lacks essence
and importantly not to say that it is completely nonexistent . 5 To say
that it lacks essence, the Madhyamika philosopher will explain, is
to say, as the Tibetans like to put it, that it does not exist “from its
own side” — that its existence as the object that it is— as a table —
depends not on it, nor on any purely nonrelational characteristics,
but depends on us as well. That is, if our culture had not evolved
this manner of furniture, what appears to us to be an obviously
unitary object might instead be correctly described as five objects:

3. Though in the end, as we shall see, ultimate reality depends on our conven-
tions in a way, it depends on our conventions in a very different* way from that in
which conventional reality does. Despite this difference in the structure of the
relation between convention and reality in the two cases, however, it remains a
distinctive feature of Nagarjuna’s system that it is impossible to speak coherently of
reality independent of conventions.

4. I have generally translated the Tibetan “rang bzhin ” (Skt: svabhava) with the
English philosophical term “essence,” as opposed to the more traditional “self-
nature” or “own-being” used by many Buddhologists. (Here I agree with Cabezon
[1992].) I think that this best captures Nagarjuna’s usage, and this choice makes
good etymological sense as well. But there are dangers here. “ Rang bzhin ” and
“ svabhava ” have their semantic homes in Buddhist philosophical literature, and
their ordinary meanings derive from their usage in that environment. “Essence” has
it semantic home in the Western philosophical tradition. So there will no doubt be
resonances of the original terms that are not captured by the translation and new
resonances introduced that would be foreign to the original text. But this is unavoid-
able in a translation. Retaining the original term is worse, as it conveys nothing to
the reader not already conversant with Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Buddhist philosophy.
And using one of the ugly neologisms frequently introduced conveys the misleading
impression that the original introduces such an ugly neologism. In the interest of
not cluttering this text with philological footnotes, I will not generally defend my
choices as I do here. But I do remind the reader of this and of any translation:
Caveat lector! A great deal of interpretation goes into any translation.

5. See also Ng (1993), esp. pp. 12-15, for a good exposition. For an exposition
of the contrary view, see Wood (1994). As will be clear, I disagree with his interpre-
tation globally and on many points of detail.

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

four quite useful sticks absurdly surmounted by a pointless slab of
stick- wood waiting to be carved. Or we would have no reason to
indicate this particular temporary arrangement of this matter as an
object at all, as opposed to a brief intersection of the histories of
some trees. It is also to say that the table depends for its existence
on its parts, on its causes, on its material, and so forth. Apart from
these, there is no table. The table, we might say, is a purely arbi-
trary slice of space-time chosen by us as the referent of a single
name and not an entity demanding, on its own, recognition and a
philosophical analysis to reveal its essence. That independent char-
acter is precisely what it lacks on this view . 6

So from the standpoint of Madhyamika philosophy, when we ask
of a phenomenon, Does it exist?, we must always pay careful atten-
tion to the sense of the word “exist” that is at work. We might mean
exist inherently , that is, in virtue of being a substance independent of
its attributes, in virtue of having an essence, and so forth, or we
might mean exist conventionally , that is to exist dependently, to be
the conventional referent of a term, but not to have any indepen-
dent existence. No phenomenon, Nagarjuna will argue, exists in the
first sense. But that does not entail that all phenomena are nonexis-
tent tout court. Rather, to the degree that anything exists, it exists in
the latter sense, that is, nominally, or conventionally. It will be
important to keep this ambiguity in “exists” in mind throughout the
text, particularly in order to see the subtle interplay between the two
truths and the way in which the doctrine of the emptiness of empti-
ness resolves apparent paradoxes in the account.

And this analysis in terms of emptiness — an analysis refusing to
characterize the nature of anything precisely because it denies that
we can make sense of the idea of a thing’s nature — proceeding by

6. Note that nothing in this example hinges on the fact that the table is an
artifact. The same points could be made about the tree from which its wood was
hewn. The boundaries of the tree, both spatial and temporal (consider the junctures
between root and soil, or leaf and air; between live and dead wood; between seed,
shoot, and tree); its identity over time (each year it sheds its leaves and grows new
ones; some limbs break; new limbs grow); its existence as a unitary object, as
opposed to a collection of cells; etc., are all conventional. Removing its properties
leaves no core bearer behind. Searching for the tree that is independent of and
which is the bearer of its parts, we come up empty. I thank Graham Parkes for
pointing out the need to stress this point.

Introduction to the Commentary

the relentless refutation of any attempt to provide such a positive
analysis, is applied by Nagarjuna to all phenomena, including,
most radically, emptiness itself. For if Nagarjuna merely argued
that all phenomena are empty, one might justly indict him for
merely replacing one analysis of things with another, that is, with
arguing that emptiness is the essence of all things. But Nagarjuna,
as we shall see, argues that emptiness itself is empty. It is not a self-
existent void standing behind a veil of illusion comprising conven-
tional reality, but merely a characteristic of conventional reality.
And this, as we shall see, is what provides the key to understanding
the deep unity between the two truths . 7

While Nagarjuna is a powerfully original thinker, he is clearly
and self-consciously operating squarely within the framework of
Buddhist philosophy. As such, Nagarjuna accepts and takes it as
incumbent upon him to provide an account of the Four Noble
Truths, nirvana, buddhahood, and other fundamental Buddhist
soteriological conceptions. Moreover, he takes it as a fundamen-
tal philosophical task to provide an understanding of what Bud-
dhist philosophy refers to as pratityasamutpada — dependent co-
origination. This term denotes the nexus between phenomena in
virtue of which events depend on other events, composites de-
pend on their parts, and so forth. Exactly how this dependency is
spelled out, and exactly what its status is, is a matter of consider-
able debate within Buddhist philosophy, just as the nature of
causation and explanation is a matter of great dispute within
Western philosophy. Nagarjuna is very much concerned to stake
out a radical and revealing position in this debate. We will, in
fact, see that this position and its connection to his understanding
of emptiness and the nirvaija-saipsara relation provides the key to
understanding his entire text.

Mulamadhyamakakarikd is divided into twenty-seven chapters,
which fall roughly, though by no means officially, into four sec-
tions. In the first section of the text, comprising Chapters I through
VII, Nagarjuna discusses the fundamental theoretical constructs in
Buddhist ontology, such as dependent origination, change and im-

7. Siderits (1989) puts this point nicely: “The ultimate truth is that there is no
ultimate truth” (p. 6).

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

permanence, perception, the aggregates that compose the self, the
elements that constitute the universe, and the relation between
substance and attribute. In the second major section, Chapters
VIII through XIII, Nagarjuna focuses on the nature of the self and
of subjective experience. Chapters XIV through XXI are primarily
concerned with the external world and the relation of the self to
objects. The final section, Chapters XXII through XXVII, ad-
dresses phenomena associated with the ultimate truth, such as bud-
dhahood, emptiness, and nirvaria, and the relation of the conven-
tional to the ultimate and of sarpsara to nirvana. The chapters that
form the climax of the text are found in this section. But it is
important to note that in fact the dialectical structure of the text
requires a reading of these chapters in order to fully grasp the
import of the earlier ones. This is because the doctrine of the
emptiness of emptiness does not fully emerge until this point, and
it is crucial to Nagarj una’s argument that all phenomena are empty
and that their emptiness is also empty . 8

The order, of the chapters is often, though not always, impor-
tant. Often a chapter will consider a phenomenon held by a propo-
nent of another philosophical school to be inherently existent. Or
an opponent may charge Nagarjuna with denying the actuality of a
phenomenon in virtue of asserting its emptiness. In his analysis,
Nagarjuna will typically argue that the phenomenon proposed as
inherently existent cannot be so and indeed is empty, or that the
phenomenon whose existence he is charged with denying is, in
fact, on his analysis, while nonexistent from the ultimate point of
view, conventionally existent. In each case, he will argue that the
functions the opponent thought could only be served by an inher-
ently existent phenomenon can, in fact, be served only by empty
phenomena. But quite often these analyses will inspire natural
rejoinders of the form, “Yes, x might well be empty and only
conventionally existent, but we can’t make sense of its conven-
tional existence without presupposing the inherent existence of y."

8. I should note that this division of the text is not in any sense canonical. Tsong
Khapa sees the structure slightly differently; Kalupahana (1986) proposes yet an-
other structure. I see my own division, like these others, simply as a useful heuristic
device for parsing the argument. (It should be noted that the division of the text
even into chapters is due to Candraklrti.)

Introduction to the Commentary

In such cases, the next chapter will typically address that natural
rejoinder. So, for instance, the first chapter argues that conditions
and the relation between phenomena and that on which they de-
pend are empty. But a natural rejoinder is that even conventional
but actual conditions can only be understood in the context of
change or impermanence. So Chapter II addresses change. The
text hence forms a single sustained argument with only a few digres-
sions or changes of subject, generally marked by the section divi-
sions I have suggested above.

The first chapter addresses dependent origination. While many
Western commentators assert that this chapter opens the text sim-
ply because it addresses a “fundamental doctrine of Buddhism,” 9
my analysis of the text suggests that Nagarjuna begins with causa-
tion for deeper, more systematic reasons. In Chapters II through
XXI, Nagarjuna addresses a wide range of phenomena, including
external perceptibles, psychological processes, relations, putative
substances, and attributes, arguing that all are empty. In the final
six chapters, Nagarjuna generalizes the particular analyses into a
broad theory concerning the nature of emptiness itself and the
nature of the ultimate, of liberation, and of the relation between
emptiness and dependent arising. At the dose, he replies to objec-
tions. It is generally, and in my view correctly, acknowledged that
Chapter XXIV, the examination of the Four Noble Truths, is the
central chapter of the text and the climax of the argument, with
Chapter XXV on nirvana and saipsara sharing that spotlight. One
verse of Chapter XXIV, verse 18, has received so much attention
that interpretations of it alone represent the foundations of major
Buddhist schools in East Asia:

18. Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness.

That, being a dependent designation
Is itself the middle way.

Here Nagarjuna asserts the fundamental identity of (1) empti-
ness, or the ultimate truth; (2) the dependently originated, that is,

9. Kalupahana (1986), p. 32.

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

all phenomena; and (3) verbal convention. Moreover, he asserts
that understanding this relation is itself the middle-way philosophi-
cal view he articulates in Mulamadhyamakakarika. This verse and
the discussion in the chapters that follow provide the fulcrum for
Candrakirti’s more explicit characterization of the emptiness of emp-
tiness as an interpretation of Nagarjuna’s philosophical system —
the interpretation that is definitive of the Prasangika-Madhyamika
school. 10 In what follows I will provide an interpretation of the text
inspired by the centrality of this verse and of the chapters forming its
context that harmonizes with Candrakirti’s. In fact, on my reading
of the text this doctrine is already found in the opening chapter — the
examination of conditions. Reading the text in this way locates the
doctrine of the emptiness of emptiness not only as a dramatic philo-
sophical conclusion to be drawn at the end of twenty-four chapters
of argument, but as the perspective implicit in the argument from
the very beginning and only rendered explicit in XXIV. Reading the
text in this way will show us exactly how XXIV:18 is to be under-
stood and just why a proper understanding of causality is so central
to Buddhist philosophy.

When a Westerner first encounters Mulamadhyamakakarika or
other Madhyamika texts, the philosophical approach can appear
highly metaphysical and downright weird. The unfamiliar philo-
sophical vocabulary, the highly negative dialectic, and the cryptic
verse form are indeed forbidding. Most bizarre of all, however, at
first glance is the doctrine that all phenomena, including self and
its objects, are empty. For indeed Nagarjuna and his followers do
argue that the entire everyday world is, from the ultimate stand-
point, nonexistent. And that does appear to stand just a bit deeper
into philosophical left field than even Berkeley dares to play. But if
the interpretation I will urge is adopted, the real central thrust of
Madhyamika is the demystification of this apparently mystical con-
clusion. While it might appear that the Madhyamikas argue that
nothing really exists except a formless void, in fact the actuality of

10. For a translation of much of Candrakirti’s commentary ( Prasannapada ), see
Sprung (1979). Huntington and Wangchen (1993) provide an excellent translation
of Candrakirti’s principal treatise on Madhyamika ( Madhyamakavatara ).

Introduction to the Commentary 95

the entire phenomenal world, persons and all, is recovered within
that emptiness . 11

Now a word about the methodology and intent of this commen-
tary: Since the intended audience is Western philosophers and
students of philosophy whose primary study has been in the West-
ern tradition, I have tried throughout, insofar as that is possible
without distortion of the meaning of the text, to explain Nagar-
juna’s arguments and positions in language familiar to Western
philosophers. I have occasionally used analogies to positions and
arguments found in Western texts, but have avoided doing so
where I thought that the comparisons might force a Procrustean
analysis of Nagarjuna’s own views. And it is, of course, impossible
and pointless to completely recast Nagarjuna’s positions as those
with which we in the West are familiar and to replace his technical
terminology with ours. For Nagarjuna is not a Western philoso-
pher. He is an Indian Buddhist philosopher whose work we ap-
proach through a vast Asian Buddhist commentarial literature.
And while many of his concerns, problems, theses, and arguments
are recognizable cousins of ours, many are not, and there are
genuine differences in outlook.

This is what makes Nagarjuna’s work so exciting to read and to
think about — it provides a genuinely distinctive perspective on a
set of problems and projects that we share. In commenting on
Nagarjuna’s text, I am constantly aware of walking a philosophical
and hermeneutical tightrope. On the one hand, one could provide
a perfectly traditional commentary on the text — or better, a transla-
tion of one of the major Sanskrit or Tibetan commentaries — or a
transcript of oral commentary by a recognized scholar of the tradi-
tion. Such a commentary would explain in great detail the way the
text is seen from the perspective of its home tradition and the
background of Buddhist controversies to which the text responds.
A commentary like this would undoubtedly be of great use to
Buddhologists and philosophers already steeped in Buddhist phi-

11. For useful discussions of the recovery of the conventional within emptiness
and the relation between the two truths in Madhyamika philosophy, see Sprung
(1973, 1979), esp. 1973, pp. 15-20; Newland (1992); Napper (1992); Streng (1967),
esp. chap. 3.

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

losophy and its history. And indeed Sprung’s translation of most of
Candrakirti’s Prasannapada (Lucid Exposition ), including the root
verses from Mulamadhyamakakarika , partially fulfills this need.
But many of these scholars and students already have access to the
relevant texts in their original languages or to teachers situated
within the Buddhist tradition.

On the other hand, one could try to comment on the text by
presenting a theory of what Nagarjuna would have said had he
been a twentieth-century Western philosopher. One could then
feel free to step back from the internecine debates in the classical
Buddhist academy, which were so absorbing to the historical
Nagarjuna and so distant from our own context, and simply ask
how his arguments would be formulated in the context of the
contemporary philosophical scene. Leaving aside the question of
how one would identify the possible philosopher denoted by this
bizarre counterf actual, this would again be a profoundly unsatisfy-
ing enterprise. For what makes this a great text is not simply that
we can extrapolate its significance to our own context, but that in
reading it, to borrow Gadamer’s metaphor, we are able to fuse its
textual horizon with our own. It is the bringing to the present of
Nagarjuna’s own concerns, insights, and arguments that is revela-
tory, not speculation about a related counterfactual nonentity. And
for this fusion of interpretive horizons to be possible, we must, as
much as possible, respect the original horizon of the text.

Having said this, one must confess the double difficulty of giving
sense to the phrase “Nagarjuna’s own concerns, insights, and argu-
ments.” The recovery of authorial intent as a hermeneutic task is
problematic (especially when the author is so culturotemporally
remote and when his corpus is as controversial in composition and
interpretation as is Nagarjuna’s). But it is equally problematic as a
hermeneutic desideratum. For who is to say that Nagarjuna was/is
the best possible interpreter of Mulamadhyamakakarika ? After
all, he did not have the benefit of the long commentarial tradition
he spawned . 12 A great text — or, as Gadamer has referred to such

12. The late Wilfrid Sellars was fond of saying that we understand Plato better
than Plato could ever have understood himself: Plato, for instance, could never
have dreamed of the consequences that would be drawn from his arguments.

Introduction to the Commentary

texts, an “eminent text”— grows over time and merits reinterpreta-
tion and rereading as the tradition in which it participates develops
and provides an ever-expanding context for its reading. Moreover,
I am reading Nagarjuna largely through the lens of the Tibetan
commentarial tradition and through the Tibetan translation of his
text— the text read and discussed by the scholars of this long,
deep, and intellectually diverse and rich tradition, few of whom
had access to Sanskrit. So the Nagarjuna whose views I am explor-
ing is an evolving figure, rooted in the life and writing of a first or
second century Indian monk, of whom we know but little, but
whose literary life and identity extends through a complex, sophisti-
cated, and contested textual and philosophical tradition in India
and Tibet and in the West.

As a consequence, in interpreting this text on the Middle Path
for a Western audience, I have sought insofar as possible to find a
middle path between these extremes. I have tried to explain
Nagarjuna’s own arguments and their context as straightforwardly
as possible without burdening the Western philosophical reader
with extended discussion of the specifically ancient Indian Bud-
dhist philosophical debates. I have indicated ways in which very
specific arguments can be generalized and have commented on
general structural features of arguments, chapters, and the text. I
have throughout explained arguments in Western philosophical
terms, while situating those arguments in their Buddhist context.
There may be times when my desire to make arguments accessible
has led to some distortion in Nagarjuna’s sense. There may also be
times at which, by leaving arguments set firmly within the soterio-
logical context of Buddhism, I have left those arguments looking
like curios to my Western audience. Some of this may be unavoid-
able, but in any case I have sought specifically to minimize these
difficulties.

The interpretation I offer is situated squarely within a Prasangika-
Madhyamika interpretation of Nagarjuna (the philosophical school
that reads Mulamadhyamakakdrika through the commentaries of
Buddhapalita and Candraklrti). But more specifically, my reading is
heavily influenced by the Tibetan Geluk-pa tradition that takes as
central the commentaries of dGe-’dun-grub, mKhas-grub-rje, and
especially, Je Tsong Khapa. My interpretation of the text reflects not

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

only Candraklrti’s and Je Tsong Khapa’s commentaries, but also
the extended oral commentary I have received on this text from the
eminent Tibetan Madhyamika scholars, especially the Ven. Profes-
sor Geshe Yeshes Thap-Khas of the Central Institute of Higher
Tibetan Studies and the Ven. Professor Gen Lobzang Gyatso of the
Institute of Buddhist Dialectics (I should point out that both of
these scholars — as well as others to whom I am indebted for val-
uable conversations, including the Most Ven. Prof. Samdhong
Rinpoche and the Ven. Geshe Namgyal Wangchen — received their
education at Drepung Loseling Monastic College, and so my inter-
pretation also reflects more particularly the academic tradition of
that institution).

Having characterized this as a tradition of interpretation, I must
emphasize that it is not, as it is often represented, and as it often
represents itself, a homogeneous tradition. Though there is a
hermeneutic convention in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist literature of pre-
senting oneself as merely expounding faithfully the views of all of
the earlier commentators, this is almost never the truth. There are
considerable divergences in interpretation and in philosophical posi-
tion within Buddhist schools and within lineages. Indeed the Ti-
betan scholars I have regularly consulted, despite the fact that they
shared many of the same teachers and an identical curriculum, differ
widely among themselves on many issues. It would hence be impossi-
ble in any case to represent accurately the Prasangika-Madhyamika
interpretation, or even the Geluk-pa interpretation or the Drepung
Loseling interpretation of Mulamadhyamakakarika .

I emphasize that even if one could identify such a homogeneous
interpretation , I am not here presenting the interpretation or inter-
pretations of any of these commentators or scholars, individually
or collectively. There are substantial debates within these tradi-
tions regarding interpretative issues, and I do not consistently side
with any particular faction (though I do think that it is true that my
reading never conflicts directly with that of Candraklrti); some-
times (as in my reading of the final chapter) I depart from the most
common Geluk-pa interpretation entirely in favor of a line more
closely associated with the Nyingma-pa reading of the text. Nor is
the purpose of this text to compare, criticize, and resolve differ-
ences between interpretations. Instead, I here present the text as I

Introduction to the Commentary

read it, having been influenced by all of these commentators and
teachers, and as I present it to my Western colleagues. And my
intention in doing so is to let the text stand alone as a work of
philosophy valuable in its own right to anyone interested in funda-
mental metaphysical, epistemological, and soteriological ques-
tions, not as a text to be studied only as part of “the history of
philosophy” or “comparative philosophy.”

Moreover, my exposition will be deliberately sympathetic. My
goal is not to assess Nagarjuna’s philosophy, but to present and
elucidate it and to do so in a way that, while making the text
accessible to Western philosophers, does not disguise the fact that
the text made accessible is an early Indian Madhyamika philosophi-
cal treatise, read by a Western philosopher through an extended
Indo-Tibetan commentarial and academic tradition. It is neither a
contemporary treatise nor a second century text transported mi-
raculously to us without the distortion of time and cultural dis-
tance. Buddhologists may lament the lack of critical discussion of
Buddhist antecedents and commentarial sequellae, and my Ti-
betan colleagues may be uncomfortable with some of the tenden-
tious extensions of arguments beyond the dialectical contexts in
which they originally arose. Despite this, I hope that for Western
philosophers interested in approaching Madhyamika in particular
or Buddhist philosophy in general, and for students of Nagarjuna’s
philosophy in the West, this exposition will make his text more
accessible.

Dedicatory Verses

I prostrate to the Perfect Buddha,

The best of teachers, who taught that
Whatever is dependently arisen is
Unceasing, unborn,

Unannihilated, not permanent,

Not coming, not going,

Without distinction, without identity,

And free from conceptual construction.

Dedicatory verses are often treated as mere performatives. But
these are special and announce in a subtle -but powerful way the
program of the Mulamadhyamakakarika . There is a common point
being made in the four pairwise denials, but also a specific insight
being expressed in each. The relation between the conventional
and the ultimate that will be developed in the text is also expressed
poetically in the dedication. In fact, Candraklrti, in Prasannapada ,
argues that the dedication determines the Prasangika reading of
Nagarjuna’s text.

Candrakfrti’s point is this: In the four pairwise denials, Nagar-
juna is announcing that the Madhyamika philosopher will make no
positive assertions about the fundamental nature of things. But this
claim must be qualified in several ways. For one thing, we must
take the phrase “the nature of things” very seriously. That is,
Nagarjuna will be refusing to say anything about the essence of
anything exactly because he will deny the coherence and utility of
the concept of an essence. For another, it is important to see that
the predications that are rejected are intended to be understood as

Dedicatory Verses

101

made from the ultimate standpoint. That is, the assertions that are
being denied are assertions about the final nature of phenomena
that emerge from philosophical analysis. They are not meant to be
ordinary assertions dependent upon conventions. Nagarjuna will
deny that it is possible to assert anything from the ultimate stand-
point. He will urge that all truth is relative and conventional. In
fact, as we shall see, these qualifications turn out to be mutually
entailing.

But each pair is significant in its own right. To say that “whatever
is dependently arisen is unceasing and unborn” is to emphasize
that dependent arising amounts to emptiness, and emptiness
amounts to nonexistence in the ultimate sense. While, as we shall
see, Nagarjuna defends the conventional existence of phenomena,
he will urge that none of them ultimately exist — that none of them
exist independently of convention with identities and natures that
they possess in themselves. Therefore, he will argue, nothing ulti-
mately is born, and from the ultimate standpoint there is nothing
to cease. This is a deep point, which only emerges completely
through a reading of the whole text. But we can say at this point
that this insight contains within it the seeds of the eventual equa-
tion of the phenomenal world with emptiness, of saipsara with
nirvana, and of the conventional and the ultimate that are the
hallmarks of the Prasangika-Madhyamika view.

When Nagarjuna claims that “whatever is dependently arisen
is . . . unanihilated and not permanent” he indicates that the de-
pendently arisen world and all of its contents are, in virtue of being
dependently arisen and dependent upon conditions, impermanent.
Phenomena come into existence when the conditions upon which
they depend obtain, and they cease to exist when the conditions for
their continued existence no longer obtain. This impermanence, he
will argue, entails their nonexistence from the ultimate standpoint.
For there will be no principled way to assert criteria for identity for
phenomena that distinguish them in any principled way from their
conditions. Nor can we find any essence they themselves have that
determines their identity. The criteria for identity we posit will end
up being purely conventional. Hence the same is true for any
claims of substantial difference between things. But this imperma-
nence and lack of intrinsic identity, while it amounts to the impossi-

102

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

bility of ultimate existence, is not equivalent to annihilation. The
empirical reality of things, on Nagarjuna’s analysis, is not denied
by asserting their emptiness.

Finally, to assert that things are “not coming, not going” is to
assert that the phenomenal world does not contain intrinsically
identifiable entities that persist independently with those identities
over time. As a consequence, there can be no sense in saying that
any entity, independent of conventional imputation, comes into
existence, remains in existence, or goes out of existence . 13

The final remark — that the phenomenal world is free from con-
ceptual imputation — raises a tension that is central to Madhya-
mika philosophy and that animates the whole of the text: The
tension between the desire to characterize the ultimate nature of
things and the recognition that all characterization is conventional.
For Nagarjuna will urge that all conventional phenomena are con-
ceptually designated, depending for whatever identity and exis-
tence they have on such designation, and that this merely imputed
status is their ultimate nature. Despite this, however, he will urge
that seeing this fact is at the same time to see that the nature
naively imputed to things and the nature they appear to us to
have — inherent existence — is wholly false. In themselves, from
their side, things are free of that imputation, even though there is
really nothing at all that can be said from their side. This dynamic
philosophical tension — a tension between the Madhyamika ac-
count of the limits of what can be coherently said and its analytical
ostension of what can’t be said without paradox but must be
understood — must constantly be borne in mind in reading the text.
It is not an incoherent mysticism, but it is a logical tightrope act at
the very limits of language and metaphysics.

13. As Georges Dreyfus points out (personal communication), many Tibetan
scholars read this line also as a comment on the selflessness of sentient beings — as
indicating that there is no self that comes from previous lives and goes 6n to future
lives.

Chapter I

Examination of Conditions

Central to this first chapter is the distinction between causes and
conditions (Skt: hetu and pratyaya , Tib: rgyu and rkyen). This
distinction is variously drawn and is controversial , 14 and it is argu-
ably differently understood in Sanskrit and Tibetan. The way I will
understand it here, I argue, makes good, coherent sense not only
of this chapter, but of Mulamadhyamakakarika as a whole. Briefly,
we will understand this distinction as follows: When Nagarjuna
uses the word “cause” {hetu, rgyu), he has in mind an event or
state that has in it a power ( kriya , bya-ba ) 15 to bring about its effect
and has that power as part of its essence or nature (svabhava, rang
bzhin). When he uses the term “condition” on the other hand

14. Some scholars Mth whom I have discussed this interpretation argue that
there is no real difference between causes and conditions, some that a cause is one
kind of condition, some that efficient causes are causes and all other causal factors
contributing to an event are conditions. Some like my reading. I have found no
unanimity on this interpretive question, either among Western Buddhologists or
among Tibetan scholars. The canonical texts are equivocal as well. I do not argue
that the distinction I here attribute to Nagarjuna, which I defend on hermeneutical
grounds, is necessarily drawn in the same way throughout the Buddhist philosophi-
cal world or even throughout the Prasangika-Madhyamika literature. But it is the
one Nagarjuna draws.

15. Some might quarrel with this translation, preferring to reserve “power” to
translate “ stob ” (Skt: bdla or shakti) and to translate " bya-ba ” or “kriya’' as “activ-
ity” or “action.” But in this context “power,” interpreted as causal power, is just
right.

104

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

( pratyaya , rkyen), he has in mind an event, state, or process that
can be appealed to in explaining another event, state, or process
without any metaphysical commitment to any occult connection
between explanandum and explanans. In Chapter I, Nagarjuna,
we shall see, argues against the existence of causes and for the
existence of a variety of kinds of conditions . 16

Things are not, however, quite this simple. For in the philosophi-
cal context in which Nagarjuna is writing, there are those — indeed
including most Buddhist philosophical schools — who would accept
his classification of conditions, but who would then assert that in
order for conditions to function as explanatory, they must them-
selves have an independent inherent existence. Some — such as the
Sarvastivadas or Sautantrika-Svatantrikas (despite other differ-
ences between these schools regarding causation) — would argue
that the conditions must exist as substantially distinct from the
conditioned; others, such as the Cittamatra, would argue that they

16. There are two kinds of cases to be made for attributing this distinction to
Nagarjuna in this chapter: Most generally, there is the hermeneutical argument that
this makes the best philosophical sense of the text. It gets Nagarjuna drawing a
distinction that is clearly suggested by his philosophical outlook and that lines up
nicely with the technical terms he deploys. But we can get more textually fine grained
as well; in the first verse, Nagarjuna explicitly rejects the existence of efficacy and
pointedly uses the word “cause.” He denies that there are such things. Nowhere in
Chapter I is there a parallel denial of the existence of conditions. On the contrary, in
I: 2 he positively asserts that there are four kinds of them. To be sure, this could be
read as a mere partitioning of the class of effects that are described in Buddhist
literature. But there are two reasons not to read it thus: First, Nagarjuna does not
couch the assertion in one of his “it might be said” locutions. Second, he never takes it
back. The positive tone the text takes regarding conditions is continued in I: 4-5,
where Nagarjuna asserts that conditions are conceived without efficacy in contrast
with the causes rejected in Chapter I and where he endorses a regularist view of
conditions. So it seems that Nagarjuna does use the “cause”/“condition” distinction
to mark a distinction between the kind of association he endorses as an analysis of
dependent arising and one he rejects. Inada (1970) among Western commentators
agrees with this interpretation. Kalupahana (1986) seems to as well (see pp. 34-35).
But see Streng (1973) and Wood (1994) for a contrasting interpretation, according to
which Nagarjuna is out to reject causes and conditions in the same sense, and accord-
ing to which the distinction between the four conditions provides a platform for an
exhaustive refutation of production with no positive account of interdependence
implicated. This latter interpretation is adopted by Tsong Khapa (Sarnath ed., pp.
12ff.) and his followers as well. They attribute a like view to Candrakirti. But I would
disagree at that point with their reading of Candrakirti’s text.

Examination of Conditions

105

can be of the same nature. 17 Nagarjuna will evade these particular
debates, however, by emphasizing that the conditions he has in
mind must be thought of as empty of inherent existence and con-
nected to the phenomena they condition neither through absolute
difference nor through identity.

The argument against causation is tightly intertwined with the
positive account of dependent arising and of the nature of the
relation between conditions and the cortditioned. Nagarjuna be-
gins by stating the conclusion (I: 1): Entities are neither self-
caused nor do they come to be through the power of other entities.
That is, there is no causation when causation is thought of as
involving causal activity: 18

1. Neither from itself nor from another,

Nor from both,

Nor without a cause,

Does anything whatever, anywhere arise.

The fourfold classification of positions with regard to the rela-
tion between an active cause and its effect is meant to be exhaus-
tive. But it is important to keep in mind that Nagarjuna was aware
of philosophical schools espousing each of these four positions.
And each of them has something to say for itself if we begin by
supposing a model of causation involving powers as essential prop-
erties of substantially real causes. The first view — held promi-
nently by Samkhya philosophers 19 — is that all causation is really
self-causation. A proponent of this view would argue that for a
cause to be genuinely the cause of an effect, that effect must exist
potentially in that cause. If it does not, then the cause might exist
without the effect, in which case the cause would fail to necessitate
the effect, in which case it would not be a genuine cause. This is

17. This account of the relevant contrastive views derives from the oral commen-
tary of the Ven. Geshe Yeshes Thap-Khas and the Ven. Gen Lobzang Gyatso.

18. The Ven. Lobzang Norbu Shastri has pointed out to me that this verse may
not in fact be original with Nagarjuna, but is a quotation from sutra. It appears in
the Kamajika-prajnaparamitasutra as well as in the Madhyamika-Salistambasutra .
But the chronological relation of these sutras to Nagarjuna’s text is not clear.

19. At least according to Tsong Khapa’s commentary on this verse.

106

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

not to say that effects exist in full actuality in their causes, but that
they have a genuine potential existence when their causes exist. In
this case, since the effect is present in the cause, it already has a
kind of existence prior to its appearance. And it is the fact of this
prior potential existence that accounts for the causal character of
the cause. So we can say, on this view, that a thing’s prior potential
existence is what gives rise to its later actual existence. So effects
are in this sense self-caused. The typical kind of example appealed
to in order to defend this model of causation is the seed and sprout
relation. The sprout, although only actual after germination, is
potential in the seed. Its potentiality is what makes the seed a seed
of that sprout. Moreover, on this view, the seed and sprout cannot
be distinguished as substantially different. Intuitively it makes
sense to say that they are two stages of the same entity. But the
seed is the cause of the sprout. Hence, the proponent of this view
concludes, the sprout is self-caused.

Causation from another is a more familiar way of thinking of
causation and was the dominant doctrine of causation in the Bud-
dhist philosophical milieu in which Nagarjuna was working. On
this view, causes and their effects are genuinely distinct phenom-
ena . 20 They can be characterized and can in principle exist indepen-
dently of one another. But they are related by the fact that one has
the power to bring the other about. The relations between parents
and children is an example often appealed to in illustrating this
doctrine. Parents bring their children into existence. But they are
not identical entities.

The doctrine of causation by both self and other emerges
through a juxtaposition of the doctrine of causation-from-another
and the doctrine of self-causation. Let us return to the example of
the seed. A proponent of other-causation might point out that
seeds that are not planted, watered, and so forth, do not sprout. If
the sprout were present in the seed, these other conditions, which
are manifestly other than the sprout, would be otiose. On the

20. I will use the term “phenomena'' throughout in the commentary as an onto-
logically neutral expression to cover events, states, processes, objects, properties,
etc. Usually phenomena of several of these categories are at play at once. Some-
times not. Where more precision is called for, I will be more specific, unless the
context makes it clear which category is relevant.

Examination of Conditions

107

other hand, the proponent of self-causation might reply: No matter
how much you water, nourish, and exhort an infertile seed — one
without the potentially existent sprout — nothing happens. So all of
the distinct conditions in the world will not suffice absent the poten-
tial existence of the effect. The happy compromise doctrine that
emerges is the doctrine of causation-by-both: Effects are the result
of the joint operation of the effect itself in potentio and the exter-
nal conditions necessary to raise the effect’s mode of existence
from potentiality to actuality.

The fourth alternative view of causation is that things simply
spontaneously arise from no particular causes — that there are no
links at all between events. What might motivate such a view? Well,
as we shall see (and as any reader of Sextus Empiricus, Hume, or
Wittgenstein will recall), there are powerful reasons for believing
that none of the three alternatives just rehearsed can be made coher-
ent. And if one believed that only if there were either some identity
or difference between causes and effects could there be a relation of
dependency between phenomena, one would be forced to the nihilis-
tic conclusion that things simply arise causelessly.

Nonetheless, Nagarjuna notes, there are conditions — in fact
four distinct kinds — that can be appealed to in the explanation and
prediction of phenomena:

2. There are four conditions: efficient condition;

Percept-object condition; immediate condition;

Dominant condition, just so.

There is no fifth condition.

The general classification of conditions Nagarjuna employs is
pretty standard in Indian and especially in Buddhist accounts of
explanation. But there are two specific features of Nagarjuna’s pre-
sentation that should be noted: First, since he is writing with specifi-
cally soteriological goals in mind, which require the practicioner to
develop a deep insight into the nature of his/her own mind, there is a
specifically psychological emphasis in the presentation. We must be
aware both of this emphasis and of the natural generalization away
from that particular domain that the account supports. Second, it
will be of paramount importance to Nagarjuna that the analysis of

108

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

the relation of conditions to the conditioned involves ascribing nei-
ther inherent existence nor causal power to the conditions.

Efficient conditions are those salient events that explain the
occurrence of subsequent events: Striking a match is the efficient
condition for its lighting. My fingers depressing the keys of this
computer is the efficient condition for the creation of this text.

The percept-object condition is in its primary sense the object in
the environment that is the condition for a mind’s perception of it.
So when you see a tree, the physical tree in the environment is the
percept-object condition of your perceptual state. Now things get
vexed here in a number of ways. First, there is no unanimity in the
world, or even in Buddhist philosophy, regarding the analysis of
perception and, hence, no consensus on the view just adumbrated —
that external objects are the percept-object conditions of perceptual
awareness. Idealists, for instance, argue that the percept-object
conditions are to be located in the subject. Second, many fans of
percept-object conditions, on both sides of the idealist/realist di-
vide, argue that the substantial existence of such a condition, and
the appropriate exercise of its power to produce perception, is a
necessary condition of perception. Nagarjuna will be concerned to
reject any such analysis — whether idealist or realist — in virtue of his
attack on the notions of substantial existence, substantial differ-
ence, and causal power. Third, within the psychological domain, the
account generalizes beyond perception. Conceptual states, imagin-
ings, reasoning — all can have percept-object conditions. To West-
ern philosophical ears this seems odd. But from the standpoint of
Buddhist epistemology and psychology, intentional 21 activity gener-
ally is the natural kind comprised by “perception.” So the point is
that the intentional existence of the golden mountain is a percept-
object condition of my being able to doubt that there is such a thing.
Finally, the analysis bears generalization well beyond the psychologi-
cal. For at the most abstract level, what is distinct about a percept-
object condition is its existence simultaneously with and as a support
for what it conditions. So Nagarjuna’s attack on a substantialist

21. “Intentional” is here being used in the sense of Brentano and of recent
Western philosophy of mind — to mean contentful or directed upon an object. I do
not use the term to mean purposeful.

Examination of Conditions

109

understanding of this kind of explanans will apply, mutatis mutan-
dis, to the case of a table supporting a book.

The dominant condition is the purpose or end for which an
action is undertaken. My hoped for understanding of Madhyamika
might be the dominant condition for my reading Nagarjuna’s text,
its presence before my eyes the percept-object condition, and the
reflected light striking my eyes the efficient condition. The immedi-
ate conditions are the countless intermediary phenomena that
emerge upon the analysis of a causal chain, in this case, the pho-
tons striking my retina, the excitation of photoreceptor cells, and
so forth. 22

A nonpsychological example might be useful to illustrate the
difference between the four kinds of condition and the picture
Nagarjuna suggests of explanation in the most general sense: Sup-
pose that you ask, “Why are the lights on?” I might reply as
follows: (1) “Because I flicked the switch.” I have appealed to an
efficient condition. Or, (2) “Because the wires are in good working
order, the bulbs haven’t burned out, and the electricity is flowing.”
These are supporting conditions. Or, (3) “The light is the emission
of photons each of which is emitted in response to the bombard-
ment of an atom by an electron, and so forth.” I have appealed to a
chain of immediate conditions. Or, (4) “So that we can see.” This
is the dominant condition. Any of these would be a perfectly good
answer to the “Why?” question. But note that none of them makes
reference to any causal powers or necessitation. 23

22. Georges Dreyfus (personal communication) notes that the understanding of
the nature of percept-object conditions and dominant conditions in Mahayana
Buddhist philosophy undergoes a significant transformation a few centuries later at
the hands of Dignaga and Dharmaklrti and that Nagarjuna is here making use of
older Sarvastivadan understandings of these terms to demonstrate the emptiness of
conditions so understood.

23. Wood (1994) argues (see esp. pp. 48-53, pp. 63-64) that Nagarjuna here
argues that nothing arises at all. He claims that the argument begins by providing an
exhaustive enumeration of the ways in which a thing could arise and then proceeds
to eliminate each of these. This analysis, however, is problematic on two counts:
First, it ignores the distinction between conventional, dependently arisen phenom-
ena and inherently existent phenomena. To say that inherently existent phenomena
cannot arise in any way, or that there can be no inherently existent production, is
not thereby to say that there is no conventional dependency, or that there are no
dependently arisen phenomena. Second, Wood ignores the positive account of

110

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

The next three verses are crucial to Nagarjuna’s understanding
of the nature of conditions and their role in explanation. Nagar-
juna first notes (I: 3) that in examining a phenomenon and its
relations to its conditions, we don’t find that phenomenon some-
how contained potentially in those conditions:

3. The essence of entities

Is not present in the conditions, etc. . . .

If there is no essence.

There can be no otherness-essence.

The point being made in the first two lines of the verse is fairly
straightforward. When we examine the set of conditions that give
rise to an entity — for example, the set of conditions we detailed
above for the shining of a lamp, or the conditions for seeing a tree
we discussed previously — no analysis of those conditions yields the
consequent effect. Dissecting light switches, wires, brains, and so
forth, does not reveal any hidden light. Nor is there a tree percep-
tion to be found already in the existence of the tree, the eye, and
so forth. Rather these phenomena arise as consequences of the
collocation of those conditions. To borrow a Kantian turn of
phrase, phenomena are not analytically contained in their condi-

dependence on conditions presented in this chapter. His interpretations of the
various commentaries that he cites in defense of this nihilistic reading are similarly
marked by inattention to this set of distinctions, which I (and many others, includ-
ing both canonical and modern interpreters) argue are crucial to understanding this
text. Wood says, “If Nagarjuna wished to avoid the nihilistic conclusion that things
do not originate period , he would never have said in 1.1a that things do not arise.
Furthermore, he would either have had to specify the way that things do arise, but
in some miraculous or inexplicable way” (p. 63 [emphasis in original]). But on my
reading at I: 1, Nagarjuna does not say that things do not arise period. He simply
says that they do not arise by means of an inherently existent causal process. And
he does both here and in subsequent chapters explain how things arise in a decid-
edly nonmiraculous way.

But see Nagao (1989) for an interpretation in accord with my own:

“Dependent co-arising refers to a causal relationship wherein no essence is pres-
ent at any time in either cause or result. Thus the sentence ‘Nothing arises from
itself; nothing arises from another,’ is not intended to refute arising. It is a
negation of others that might be explained as ‘from themselves’ or ‘from oth-
ers.’ ” (p. 7)

Examination of Conditions

111

tions; rather, a synthesis is required out of which a phenomenon
not antecedently existent comes to be.

But Nagarjuna, through his use of the phrase “the essence of
entities” (dngos-po rnams kyi rang bzhin), emphasizes a very im-
portant metaphysical consequence of this observation: Given that
phenomena depend upon their conditions for their existence and
given that nothing answering to an essence of phenomena can be
located in those conditions and given that there is nowhere else
that an essence could come from, it follows that phenomena that
arise from conditions are essenceless. One might argue at this
point that just as phenomena come into existence dependent upon
conditions, their essences come into existence in this way. But
what goes for phenomena 24 does not go for essences. For essences
are by definition eternal and fixed. They are independent. And for
a phenomenon to have an essence is for it to have some permanent
independent core. So neither essences nor phenomena with es-
sences can emerge from conditions.

The next two lines require a careful gloss, both because of the
complexity of the philosophical point at stake and because of the
Buddhist philosophical term of art I translate as “otherness-
essence” (Skt: parabhava , Tib: gzhan dngos). Let us begin by gloss-
ing that term. In its primary sense it means to have, as a thing’s
nature, dependence upon another for existence. So for a table, for
instance, to have otherness-essence, according to a proponent of
this analysis of the nature of things, might be for it to have as an
essential characteristic the property of depending for its existence
on some pieces of wood, a carpenter, and so forth. This way of
thinking of the nature of things has great appeal — was used by those
who defended the analysis of causation as production from other
and the analysis of causes and their effects according to which they
are linked by causal powers inhering in the causes — particularly for
other Buddhist schools who would want to join with Nagarjuna in
denying essence to phenomena. For such a philosopher, it would be
congenial to argue that the table has no essence of its own, but has
the essential property of depending on its parts, causes, and so

24. Especially given the analysis Nagarjuna will develop of phenomena as
empty. See especially chapters XV, XVIII, XXIV.

112

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

forth — an essential property that depends critically on another.
And it would then be important to note that this nature relies on the
other having an intrinsic connection to the phenomenon in ques-
tion, a connection realized in the causal powers (or other inherently
existent relation to the effect) of that other and, hence, in the other’s
own nature. Moreover, it is crucial to such an analysis, if it is not to
lapse into the absurdities that plague self-causation, that there be a
real, substantial difference in entity — a difference in intrinsic nature
between the dependent phenomenon and the conditions on which it
depends. Absent such a difference, the otherness required in the
analysis cannot be established . 25

Given this understanding of otherness-essence, we can see the
arguments Nagarjuna is ostending in the last two lines of this
verse. First, since all entities are without their own essences (that
is, without essences that can be specified intrinsically without refer-
ence to anything else), the other with respect to which any phe-
nomenon is purportedly essentially characterized will be without
an essence, and so there will be no basis on which to build this
otherness-essence. Second, without individual essences, there will
be no basis on which to draw the absolute, essential distinctions
necessary to establish phenomena as intrinsically other than their
conditions. Without individual essences there are not substantial
differences. Without substantial differences, there are no absolute
others by means of which to characterize phenomena. Third, in
order to characterize phenomena as essentially different from their
conditions, it is important to be able to characterize them indepen-
dently. Otherwise, each depends for its identity on the other, and
they are not truly distinct in nature. But the whole point of
otherness-essence is that things in virtue of having it are essentially
dependent. So the view is in fact internally contradictory. Given
that things have no intrinsic nature, they are not essentially differ-
ent. Given that lack of difference, they are interdependent. But
given that interdependence, there cannot be the otherness needed
to build otherness-essence out of dependence.

Now, on the reading of this chapter that I am suggesting, we can
see conditions simply as useful explanans. Using this language,

25. Streng (1967) makes a similar point. See pp. 44-45.

Examination of Conditions 113

Nagarjuna is urging that even distinguishing between explanans
and explanandum as distinct entities, with the former containing
potentially what the latter has actually, is problematic. What we
are typically confronted with in nature is a vast network of interde-
pendent and continuous processes, and carving out particular phe-
nomena for explanation or for use in explanations depends more
on our explanatory interests and language than on joints nature
presents to us. Through addressing the question of the potential
existence of an event in its conditions, Nagarjuna hints at this
concealed relation between praxis and reality.

Next, Nagarjuna notes (I: 4) that in invoking an event or entity
as a condition in explanation, we do not thereby ascribe it any
causal power:

4. Power to act does not have conditions.

There is no power to act without conditions.

There are no conditions without power to act.

Nor do any have the power to act.

This is the beginning of Nagarjuna’s attack on the causal power/
cement-of-the-universe view of causation and his contrastive devel-
opment of his regularity view of conditioned dependent arising.
Causal powers, according to those who posit them, are meant to
explain the causal nexus — they are meant to explain how it is that
causes bring about their effects, which is itself supposed to be
otherwise inexplicable. But, Nagarjuna argues, if there were a
causal power, it itself, as a phenomenon, would either have to have
conditions or not. If the former, there is a vicious explanatory
regress, for then one has to explain how the powers to act are
themselves brought about by the conditions, and this is the very
link presupposed by the friend of powers to be inexplicable. One
could posit powers the conditions have to bring about powers and
powers the powers have to bring about effects. But this just moves
one step further down the regress.

If, on the other hand, one suggests that the powers have no
condition, one is stuck positing uncaused and inexplicable occult
entities as the explanans of causation. If what is to be explained is
how it is that all phenomena are brought about by causal pro-

114

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

cesses, it is a bit embarrassing to do so by reference to unobserved
entities that are explicitly exempted from this otherwise universal
condition. Moreover, there is then no explanation of how these
powers arise and why they come to be where they are. This is all
startlingly anticipatory of Wittgenstein’s famous echo of Hume in
the Tractatus :

6.371 The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the
illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural
phenomena.

6.372 Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as
something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages.

And in fact both are right and both are wrong: though the view of the
ancients is clearer in so far as they have a clear and acknowledged termi-
nus, while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were
explained. 26

In the next two lines, as we will often see in the text, Nagarjuna
is speaking in two senses — first, from the conventional standpoint,
and second, from the ultimate. In the third line of the verse, he
notes that conditions can certainly, in a perfectly legitimate sense,
be appealed to as the things that bring about their effects; in that
sense, we can say that they are efficacious — that they have the
power to act. But in the fourth line he emphasizes that we cannot,
so to speak, quantify over this power, identifying it as a phenome-
non or property possessed by the conditions. There are no powers
in that sense. Just as we can act for someone else’s sake, despite
there being no sakes, we can appeal to the potency of conditions
despite their being no such potency. The trick is to make correct

26. There is, as Hick (1990) has noted, a current fashion of using Wittgenstein
to explicate Nagarjuna and other Madhyamika philosophers. Most (e.g. Hunting-
ton [1983a, 1983b, 1989], Gudmunson [1977], and Thurman [1984]) emphasize
connections to the Philosophical Investigations , indeed with good reason. But (as
Waldo [1975, 1978] and Anderson [1985] as well as Garfield [1990, 1994, unpub-
lished] have noted) the Tractatus is also a useful fulcrum for exegesis, particularly of
Nagarjuna’s work. Tractarian ideas also inform my discussion of Nagarjuna on
positionlessness, the limits of expressibility, and the relation between the two truths
below. None of this, however, should be taken either as implying that Nagarjuna
would agree with everything in the Tractatus (assuredly he would not) or that the
parallels drawn between Madhyamika philosophy and themes in the Philosophical
Investigations are spurious. They are in fact often quite illuminating.

Examination of Conditions

115

use of conventional locutions without reifying denotata for all of
the terms. For example, we might ask a farmer, “Do these seeds
have the power to sprout?” as a way of asking whether they are
fertile. It would be then perfectly appropriate for him to answer in
the affirmative. But if we then asked him to show us where in the
seed the power is located, he would be quite justified in regarding
us as mad. 27

Our desire for light does not exert some occult force on the
lights. Nor is there anything to be found in the flicking of the
switch other than the plastic, metal, movement, and connections
visible to the naked eye. Occult causal powers are singularly ab-
sent. On the other hand, Nagarjuna points out in this discussion
that this does not mean that conditions are explanatorily impotent.
In a perfectly ordinary sense — not the sense that the metaphysi-
cians of causation have in mind — our desire is active in the produc-
tion of light. But not in the sense that it contains light potentially,
or some special causal power that connects our minds to the bulbs.

What is it, then, about some sets of event pairs (but not others)
that make them dependently related if not some causal link present
in those cases but not in others?

5. These give rise to those,

So these are called 28 conditions.

As long as those do not come from these,

Why are these not nonconditions?

One might answer this question, Nagarjuna notes in the oppo-
nent’s suggestion in the first two lines, by noting the presence of
some relation of “giving rise to,” realized in a power. But, he
rejoins in the final two lines, this move is blocked: For having
shown the absence and the theoretical impotence of such a link, it
would follow that there would be no conditions. Nagarjuna hence
suggests here that it is the regularities that count. Flickings give

27. This example was suggested to me in conversation by the Ven. Geshe
Lobzang Gyatso.

28. The verb here is u grag” (Skt: kila ), which indicates that the embedded
content is not endorsed. That is, the first two lines of this verse are in the mouth of
the opponent.

116

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

rise to illuminations. So they are conditions of them. If they didn’t,
they wouldn’t be. Period. Explanation relies on regularities. Regu-
larities are explained by reference to further regularities. Adding
active forces or potentials adds nothing of explanatory utility to the
picture . 29

In reading the next few verses, we must be hermeneutically
cautious and pay careful attention to Nagarjuna’s use of the term
“existent” (Tib: yod-pa, Skt : sat) and its negative contrastive “non-
existent” (Tib: med-pa f asat). For Nagarjuna is worried here about
inherent existence and inherent nonexistence, as opposed to con-
ventional existence or nonexistence. For a thing to exist inherently
is for it to exist in virtue of possessing an essence — for it to exist
independently of other entities and independently of convention.
For a thing to be inherently nonexistent is for it to not exist in any
sense at all — not even conventionally or dependency. With this in
mind, we can see how Nagarjuna defends dependent arising while
rejecting causation:

6. For neither an existent nor a nonexistent thing

Is a condition appropriate.

If a thing is nonexistent, how could it have a condition?

If a thing is already existent, what would a condition do?

He notes here that if entities are conceived as inherently exis-
tent, they exist independently and, hence, need no conditions for
their production. Indeed, they could not be produced if they exist
in this way. On the other hand, if things exist in no way whatso-
ever, it follows trivially that they have no conditions . 30 The follow-

29. The Madhyamika position implies that we should seek to explain regulari-
ties by reference to their embeddedness in other regularities, and so on. To ask why
there are regularities at all, on such a view, would be to ask an incoherent question:
The fact of explanatorily useful regularities in nature is what makes explanation and
investigation possible in the first place and is not something itself that can be
explained. After all, there is only one universe, and truly singular phenomena, on
such a view, are inexplicable in principle. This may connect deeply to the Buddha’s
insistence that questions concerning the beginning of the world are unanswerable.

30. See Bhattacharya (1979), esp. pp. 336-37, for a good discussion of this
argument.

Examination of Conditions 1 17

ing three verses make this point with regard to each of the four
kinds of condi t ions :

7. When neither existents nor

Nonexistents nor existent nonexistents are established,

How could one propose a “productive cause?”

If there were one, it would be pointless.

8. An existent entity (mental episode) 31
Has no object.

Since a mental episode is Without an object,

How could there be any percept-condition?

9. Since things are not arisen,

Cessation is not acceptable.

Therefore, an immediate condition is not reasonable.

If something has ceased, how could it be a condition?

In I: 7, Nagarjuna is reasoning that since an inherently existent
phenomenon is by definition independent, it could not have been
produced by anything else. An inherently nonexistent phenome-
non certainly cannot be produced; if it were, it would be existent.
An existent nonexistent (for instance, something posited by a
Meinongian ontology — existing in a logical space, though not in
the actual world) cannot be produced since its actual production
would contradict its nonexistence and its production in some other
way would contradict the inherent existence of the other sort pos-
ited for it.

The argument in I: 8 is a bit different and is directed more
specifically at the special status of simultaneous supporting condi-
tions, such as those posited in perception, as discussed above.
Nagarjuna is making the following point: If we consider a particu-
lar moment of perception, the object of that perceptual episode
no longer exists. This is so simply because of the mundane fact
that the chain of events responsible for the arising of perceptual
consciousness takes time. So the tree of which I am perceptually

31. The Tibetan is literally " yod pa'i chos , ” or existent entity. But as both Tsong
Khapa (pp. 31-32) and dGe- 'dun-grub (p. 12) argue, the entity in question can only
be a mental episode.

118

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

aware now is a tree that existed about one hundred milliseconds
ago; not one that exists now. The light took some time to reach
my eye; the nerve impulses from the eye to the brain took some
time; visual processing took still more time. So if the story about
how the tree is the percept-object condition of my perception
according to which the tree exists simultaneously with the percep-
tion and exerts a causal power on my eye or visual consciousness
were accepted, perception would be impossible. Moreover, the
objects of many mental episodes are themselves nonexistent (like
the golden mountain). But non-existents can’t be causally respon-
sible for anything.

Verse 9 contains two arguments. In the first half of the verse,
Nagarjuna is offering a quick reductio on the idea that immediately
preceding conditions can exist inherently. By definition, an immedi-
ately preceding condition is a momentary element of a causal
chain. And, by definition, something that is inherently existent is
independent; hence, it cannot arise depending on something else
and, therefore, cannot cease to exist. But immediately preceding
conditions must arise and cease. In the final line of the verse,
Nagarjuna develops a related problem. Immediately preceding con-
ditions must cease before their effect arises. If their existence and
exertion of causal power is what explains the arising of the cause,
the arising of the cause is then inexplicable. (This argument is also
used by Sextus Empiricus in Against the Logicians . )

What is important about this strand of the argument? Nagarjuna
is drawing attention to the connection between a causal power
view of causation and an essentialist view of phenomena on the
one hand, and between a condition view of dependent arising and
a conventional view of phenomena on the other. If one views
phenomena as having and as emerging from casual powers, one
views them as having essences and as being connected to the es-
sences of other phenomena. This, Nagarjuna suggests, is ulti-
mately incoherent since it forces one at the same time to assert the
inherent existence of these things, in virtue of their essential iden-
tity, and to assert their dependence and productive character, in
virtue of their causal history and power. But such dependence and
relational character, he suggests, is incompatible with their inher-
ent existence. If, on the other hand, one regards things as depen-

Examination of Conditions

119

dent merely on conditions, one regards them as without essence
and without power. And to regard something as without essence
and without power is to regard it as merely conventionally exis-
tent. And this is to regard it as existing dependently. This provides
a coherent mundane understanding of phenomena as an alterna-
tive to the metaphysics of reification that Nagarjuna criticizes.

Verse 10 is central in this discussion:

10. If things did not exist
Without essence.

The phrase, “When this exists so this will be,”

Would not be acceptable.

Nagarjuna is replying here to the causal realist’s inference from the
reality of causal powers to their embodiment in real entities whose
essences include those powers. He turns the tables on the realist,
arguing that it is precisely because there is no such reality to
things — and hence no entities to serve as the bearers of the causal
powers the realist wants to posit — that the Buddhist formula ex-
pressing the truth of dependent arising 32 can be asserted. It could
not be asserted if in fact there were real entities. For if they were
real in the sense important for the realist, they would be indepen-
dent. So if the formula were interpreted in this context as pointing
to any causal power, it would be false. It can only be interpreted, it
would follow, as a formula expressing the regularity of nature. 33

32. A formula familiar in the suttas of the Pali canon.

33. This verse is very often translated and interpreted in a diametrically opposed
way: “Since things exist without essence the assertion ‘When this exists, this will be’ is
not acceptable.” Readings like this are to be found in Inada (1970), Streng (1967),
Sprung (1979), and Kalupahana (1986). They may be suggested by Candraktrti’s
comments to the effect that this phrase would make no sense were it asserted by the
realist. But such a translation is not supported by the dialectical structure of the
chapter and forces an excessively negative interpretation on the chapter as a whole.
Moreover, as we shall see in Chapter XXIV, this would entail an untenable absolut-
ism with respect to the ultimate truth and a corresponding untenable nihilism with
respect to the conventional world. But see Nagao (1989) for a better reading:

The meaning of the traditional expressions “dependent upon this,” or “if this
exists then that exists” is not that when one essence exists, then some other
essence exists apart from it. On the contrary, it is because both this and that do
not exist as essences that, when this exists, then that also exists, (p. 7)

120

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

In the next three verses (I: 11-13), Nagarjuna anticipates and
answers the causal realist’s reply:

11. In the several or united conditions
The effect cannot be found.

How could something not in the conditions
Come from the conditions?

Here the realist argues that the conclusion Nagarjuna draws from
the unreality of causal power — the nonexistence of things (where
“existence” is read “inherent existence”) — entails the falsity of the
claim that things dependently arise. For if there are no things,
surely nothing arises. This charge has a double edge: If the argu-
ment is successful it not only shows that Nagarjuna’s own position
is vacuous, but that it contradicts one of the most fundamental
tenets of Buddhist philosophy — that all phenomena are depen-
dently arisen. Moreover, the opponent charges, on Nagarjuna’s
view that the explanandum is not to be found potentially in the
explanans, there is no explanation of how the former is to be
understood as depending upon the latter. As Nagarjuna will em-
phasize in I: 14, however, the very structure of this charge contains
the seeds of its reply. The very emptiness of the effect, an effect
presupposed by the opponent to be nonempty, in fact follows from
the emptiness of the conditions and of the relationship between
conditions and effect. Nagarjuna will, hence, reply to the oppo-
nent’s attempted refutation by embracing the conclusion of his
reductio together with the premises it supposedly refutes.

12. However, if a nonexistent effect
Arises from these conditions,

Why does it not arise

From nonconditions?

How, the opponent asks, are we to distinguish coincidental se-
quence from causal consequence, or even from conventional de-
pendence? And why don’t things simply arise randomly from
events that are nonconditions since no special connection is pos-
ited to link consequents to their proper causal antecedents?

Examination of Conditions

121

13. If the effect’s essence is the conditions,

But the conditions don’t, have their own essence,

How could an effect whose essence is the conditions

Come from something that is essenceless?

Finally, the opponent asks, since the phenomena we observe
clearly have natures, and since those natures clearly derive from
their causes, how could it be, as Nagarjuna argues, that they pro-
ceed by means of a process with no essence, from conditions with
no essence? Whence do the natures of actual existents arise?
Nagarjuna again will reply to this last charge by pointing out that
since on his view the effects indeed have no essence, the oppo-
nent’s presupposition is ill-founded. This move also indicates a
reply to the problem posed in I: 12. That problem is grounded in
the mistaken view that a phenomenon’s lack of inherent existence
entails that it, being nonexistent, could come into existence from
nowhere. But “from nowhere,” for the opponent, means from
something lacking inherent existence. And indeed, for Nagarjuna,
this is exactly the case; Effects lacking inherent existence depend
precisely upon conditions that themselves lack inherent existence.

Nagarjuna’s summary of the import of this set of replies is terse
and cryptic. But unpacking it with the aid of what has gone before
provides an important key to understanding the doctrine of the
emptiness of causation that is the burden of this chapter:

14. Therefore, neither with conditions as their essence,

Nor with nonconditions as their essence are there any effects.

If there are no such effects,

How could conditions or nonconditions be evident?

First, Nagarjuna points out, the opponent begs the question in
asserting the genuine existence of the effects in question. They,
like their conditions, and like the process of dependent origination
itself, are nonexistent from the ultimate point of view. That is, they
have no essence whatever. Hence, the third charge fails. As a
consequence, in the sense in which the opponent supposes that
these effects proceed from their conditions — namely that their es-
sence is contained potentially in their causes, which themselves

122

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

exist inherently — these effects need not be so produced. And so,
finally, the effect-containing conditions for which the opponent
charges Nagarjuna with being unable to account are themselves
unnecessary. In short, while the reificationist critic charges the
Madhyamika with failing to come up with a causal link sufficiently
robust to link ultimately real phenomena, for the Madhyamika
philosopher the core reason for the absence of such a causal link is
the very absence of such phenomena in the first place.

We are now in a position to characterize explicitly the emptiness
of causation and the way this doctrine is identical with the doctrine
of dependent origination from conditions adumbrated in this chap-
ter. It is best to offer this characterization using the via media formu-
lation most consonant with Nagarjuna’s philosophical school. We
will locate the doctrine as a midpoint between two extreme philo-
sophical views. That midpoint is achieved by taking conventions as
the foundation of ontology, hence rejecting the very enterprise of a
philosophical search for the ontological foundations of convention
(Garfield 1990). To say that causation is nonempty, or inherently
existent, is to succumb to the temptation to ground our explanatory
practice and discourse in genuine causal powers linking causes to
effects. That is the reificationist extreme that Nagarjuna clearly
rejects. To respond to the arguments against the inherent existence
of causation by suggesting that there is then no possibility of appeal-
ing to conditions to explain phenomena — that there is no dependent
origination at all — is the extreme of nihilism, also clearly rejected
by Nagarjuna. To assert the emptiness of causation is to accept the
utility of our causal discourse and explanatory practice, but to resist
the temptation to see these as grounded in reference to causal pow-
ers or as demanding such grounding. Dependent origination simply
is the explicability and coherence of the universe. Its emptiness is
the fact that there is no more to it than that.

Keep this analysis in mind, for when we reach Chapter XXIV, in
which the most explicit analysis of emptiness itself and of the rela-
tion of emptiness to the conventional world is articulated, we will
see that the principal philosophical move in Nagarjuna’s demysti-
fication of emptiness was this attack on a reified view of causality.
Nagarjuna replaces the view shared by the metaphysician and the
person in the street, a view that presents itself as common sense,

Examination of Conditions

123

but is in fact deeply metaphysical, with an apparently paradoxical,
thoroughly empty, but in the end commonsense view not only of
causation, but of the entire phenomenal world. This theme — the
replacement of apparent common sense that is deeply metaphysi-
cally committed with an apparently deeply metaphysical but actu-
ally commonsense understanding of the phenomenal world — will
recur in each chapter of the text.

Chapter II

Examination of Motion

The target of Nagarjuna’s arguments in this chapter is any view of
motion according to which motion is an entity, or a property with
an existence independent of that of moving things, or according
to which motion is part of the nature of moving things. These are
versions of what it would be to think of motion as nonempty. It
might be quite natural for a reificationist to reply to the argu-
ments in Chapter I by proposing that such a view must be the
case. For in Chapter I Nagarjuna does presuppose, in developing
the view that conventionally things do arise dependent upon con-
ditions, that there is motion, or change. For if there were not,
there would be no arising. And as we have seen, this would
indeed be an absurd consequence for Nagarjuna. So, one might
think, even if the links between conditions and their conse-
quences are empty, the change represented by the arising of these
consequences must be real.

Nagarjuna argues that from such a view a number of absurd
consequences would follow: Things not now in motion, but which
were in motion in the past or which will be in the future, would
have to undergo substantial change, effectively becoming different
things when they change state from motion to rest or vice versa; a
regress would ensue from the need for the entity motion itself to be
in motion; motion would occur in the absence of moving things;
the moment at which a thing begins or ceases motion would be

Examination of Motion

125

indescribable. Nagarjuna concludes that a reification of motion is
incoherent. Motion is therefore empty.

1. What has been moved is not moving.

What has not been moved is not moving.

Apart from what has been moved and what has not been
moved,

Movement cannot be conceived.

That is, if motion exists, there must be sometime at which it
exists. Nagarjuna in this opening verse considers the past and the
future. This makes good sense. For motion requires a change of
position, and a change of position must occur over time. But the
present has no duration. So if motion were to exist, it would have
to exist either in the past or in the future. But a thing that has
moved only in the past is not now moving. Nor is a thing yet to be
moved. One might, of course, suggest that there is a simple tense
fallacy here — that things that were moving in the past were then in
motion, that things that will move in the future will then be in
motion. But this would be problematic. For that would mean that
all motion would be in the past or in the future, and this could be
said at any time. So there would be no time at which it would be
true of any thing that it is in motion . 34 But this intuition is behind
the opponent’s reply in the next verse:

2. Where there is change, there is motion.

Since there is change in the moving,

And not in the moved or not- moved,

Motion is in that which is moving.

This verse is important not only because it announces the obvi-
ous reply that motion exists in presently moving things, but be-
cause it introduces the connection between change in general and
motion. Though this interpretative point is controversial, and sev-
eral scholars have given widely different interpretations , 35 it is

34. The parallels to Zeno’s paradoxes of motion, particularly that of the arrow,
should be evident.

35. The Ven. Geshe Yeshes Thap-Khas, for instance, argues that the chapter
should be interpreted as about change in general; the Ven. Gen Lobzang Gyatso,

126

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

highly plausible that Nagarjuna is calling attention to the fact that
the attack on motion as an inherently existent phenomenon is a
general attack on seeing change or impermanence as inherently
existent. This suggests that even the properties that according to
Buddhist philosophy characterize all things — being dependently
arisen and being impermanent — are not themselves inherently exis-
tent. Nagarjuna replies:

3. How would it be acceptable
For motion to be in the mover?

When it is not moving, it is not acceptable
To call it a mover.

The point here is that if motion is thought of both as inherently
existent and as a property of the mover, then it should, as inherently
existent, continue to exist. For something that is inherently existent
depends for nothing on its existence, and so it cannot be deprived of
the conditions of its manifestation. That is because inherent exis-
tence is existence with an essence, as an independent entity whose
identity can be intrinsically specified. (See Chapter XV for more
detail.) But movers come to rest. It would seem then that it would
have to be appropriate to call something a mover, even when it is at
rest, since inherently existing motion could not cease.

4. For whomever there is motion in the mover,

There could be nonmotion

Evident in the mover.

But having motion follows from being a mover.

on the other hand, argues that though the arguments could indeed be applied to
change in general, the chapter is specifically about motion through space. The
Ven. Lobzang Norbu Shastri argues that it is in fact specifically only about walk-
ing, and that any further generalization is illicit (all personal communication). I
side with the Ven. Geshe Yeshes Thap-Khas on this point since Nagarjuna offers
perfectly general arguments against change in properties. And it would seem
especially elegant for Nagarjuna, who is attacking the tendency to reify, to begin
with the two properties most subject to reification in Buddhist philosophy, in
virtue of their universal applicability to phenomena and centrality to the Buddhist
metaphysical framework — dependent arising and change. While the canonical
commentaries I have consulted do not extend the argument in this direction, they
do not preclude such an extension.

Examination of Motion

127

In this verse Nagarjuna begins his attack on the idea that motion
is a property with an existence independent of movers. If, he as-
serts, one were to posit motion as such a property that simply
happened to inhere in movers, it would follow from its indepen-
dence that movers might not have it, but instead its contrary,
namely, nonmotion. But that is not tenable. So it follows that
motion can’t be thought of as an independent property. This line of
argument is continued in the next two verses:

5. If motion is in the mover,

There would have to be a twofold motion:

One in virtue of which it is a mover,

And one in virtue of which it moves.

6. If there were a twofold motion,

The subject of that motion would be twofold.

For without a subject of motion,

There cannot be motion.

Here Nagarjuna develops a reductio on a position according to
which motion is a property of the mover only at the time that the
mover is in motion. This might seem to be a much more plausible
view than the earlier discussed view of motion as an essential prop-
erty. But Nagarjuna argues that this can’t work either. For it in-
volves a multiplication of movements and agents of motion that is
unacceptable to the proponent of such a theory. For if the motion is
a property of the mover at all, both the mover and the motion must
be moving. And this amounts to two separate motions. One
mo tion — that in virtue of which the mover is a mover in the first
place — is the motion posited by the theory. But if that motion were
stationary, the mover would either also not be moving or it would
“outrun” its motion and leave it behind. So there must also be a mo-
tion of the motion. Each of these two motions requires a subject.
They can’t be the same subject because then the mover and the mo-
tion would be identical, which would be absurd. So in explaining the
motion of a single individual, the opponent is stuck with two movers.

This argument clearly can be understood as the start of an infi-
nite regress. It is not at all clear whether Nagarjuna so intended it,
as the context in which the argument is formulated is one in which

128

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

the consequence that two movers emerge in the analysis of the
motion of a single mover is enough to refute the opponent . 36 But it
is important to see that once this multiplication of explanatory
motions and agents begins, it cannot be stopped, and so this argu-
ment constitutes a perfectly general attack on a view according to
which motion is an entity associated with movers. It is also worth
noting that the argument generalizes in other ways: It can be for-
mulated as an argument against a parallel analysis of change as an
independent property and, in general, as an argument against prop-
erties as entities that inhere in subjects — a twofold redness is re-
quired for a red shirt to be red because of the possession of red-
ness. So this is, in fact, a “third man” argument.

7. If without a mover

It would not be correct to say that there is motion,

Then if there were no motion,

How could there be a mover?

Nagarjuna is here emphasizing the codependence of motion and
the mover. If there are no movers, there is no motion. If there is no
motion, there are no movers. This has import at both the conven-
tional level and with respect to any discussion of the inherent
existence of either the mover or motion. At the conventional level,
it means that any analysis of either motion or the mover that leaves
the other out, or that does not involve codependence, will fail.
Neither can be established as an independent basis for the analysis
of the other. But it also means that neither, therefore, can be
thought to inherently exist since to exist inherently would be to
exist independently.

8. Inasmuch as a real mover does not move,

And a nonmover does not move,

Apart from a mover and a nonmover,

What third thing could move?

36. The commentaries I have consulted are silent on this issue, and there is no
consensus among the Tibetan scholars with whom I have worked regarding this
issue.

Examination of Motion

129

Here the terms “mover” and “nonmover” must be understood in
the context of the previous arguments. Nagarjuna is clearly talking
about entities that are essentially in motion or in nonmotion. He has
argued that we cannot think of a thing in motion as a thing whose
nature is to move. And clearly a thing whose nature is not to move
cannot be in motion. So if motion is thought of as a property that is
either part of the nature of a thing or incompatible with a thing’s
nature, we are left with the conclusion that there is no motion. And
so we have a philosophical problem: How is ordinary motion (and
change) possible? Nagarjuna emphasizes this in the following verses:

9. When without motion,

It is unacceptable to call something a mover,

How will it be acceptable
To say that a mover moves?

10. For him from whose perspective a mover moves,

There would be the consequence that
Without motion there could be a mover.

Because a mover moves.

These verses recapitulate the argument in II: 4 and II: 7. If we
simply regard motion and mover as independent phenomena, we
are forced to the absurd consequence that either could be present
without the other.

11. If a mover were to move,

There would be a twofold motion:

One in virtue of which he is a mover,

And one in virtue of which the mover moves.

This last verse recapitulates the important argument in II: 6 in
preparation for the attack on the possibility of the beginning and
end of motion. The next few verses are reminiscent both of Zeno
of Elea and Sextus Empiricus:

12. Motion does not begin in what has moved,

Nor does it begin in what has not moved,

Nor does it begin in what is moving.

In what, then, does motion begin?

130

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

13. Prior to the beginning of motion,

There is no beginning of motion in
The going or in the gone.

How could there be motion in the not-gone?

These two verses are alternative formulations of the same argu-
ment: If there is motion, it must begin sometime. But that moment
is inconceivable. For motion doesn’t begin in a stationary thing.
And once a thing is in motion, it is too late. It can’t always have
begun in the past or be yet to begin, and there simply isn’t time to
go anywhere in the present.

14. Since the beginning of motion
Cannot be conceived in any way,

What gone thing, what going thing,

And what nongoing thing can be posited?

After having emphasized this point, Nagarjuna points out that
all that has been said about motion (and hence implicitly about
change) applies, mutatis mutandis, to rest (and hence implicitly to
stasis). Things that are in motion cannot be simultaneously at rest.
But to say that a stationary thing is at rest, where rest is conceived
as a property or entity having independent existence, would in-
volve us in the same paradoxes encountered above: The stasis itself
would have to be either in motion or at rest. If in motion, then the
static thing would have to be in motion, which is contradictory. But
if at rest, then it must be at rest in virtue of possessing stasis, and
we are off on the same regress:

15. Just as a moving thing is not stationary,

A nonmoving thing is not stationary.

Apart from the moving and the nonmoving,

What third thing is stationary?

16. If without motion

It is not appropriate to posit a mover,

How could it be appropriate to say
That a moving thing is stationary?

Examination of Motion

131

And, in the same fashion, all that applies to the initiation of
motion applies mutatis mutandis, to its cessation:

17. One does not halt from moving,

Nor from having moved or not having moved.

Motion and coming to rest
And starting to move are similar.

Nagarjuna now develops further problems with any view regard-
ing motion as an entity; it must be either identical to or different
from the mover. Both options, he will argue, turn out to be incoher-
ent:

18. That motion just is the mover itself
Is not correct.

Nor is it correct that

They are completely different.

19. It would follow from

The identity of mover and motion
That agent and action
Are identical.

The identity of agent and action is absurd on its face. For then
whenever an agent were to perform another act, s/he would be-
come a distinct agent. There would be no basis for identifying
individuals over time.

20. It would follow from

A real distinction between motion and mover
That there could be a mover without motion
And motion without a mover.

This is more complicated. It is important to recall that the target
positions here are positions that reify motion as a distinct entity ,
however abstract. If motion were an entity, and were distinct from
all movers, then it should be possible to separate motion from

132

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

movers. 37 Then we should see motion when nothing is moving and
movers that are not in motion. Noticing that this is a problem for
Nagarjuna’s opponent provides us with a hint as to the positive
account of conventional motion that we should take from this chap-
ter to be discussed below: Motion can only be understood in rela-
tion to movers — as a relation between their positions at different
times. Movers can only be understood as movers in relation to
motion so understood. But to understand motion and movers this
way is not to reify them as entities — and so to escape the dilemma
of their identity or difference. Nagarjuna emphasizes this moral in
the next verse, where we must read “established” as meaning estab-
lished as existent entities .

21. When neither in identity
Nor in difference

Can they be established,

How can these two be established at all?

22. The motion by means of which a mover is manifest
Cannot be the motion by means of which he moves.

He does not exist before that motion,

So what and where is the thing that moves?

In this verse and in the next, Nagarjuna is simply emphasizing
the interdependence of motion and the mover. In II: 22 he notes
the absurdity of the supposition that the mover and the motion are
known independently. If they could be, then the mover would have
to have one motion in virtue of which he was a mover and a second
independent motion in virtue of which he now moves. But since
prior to being in motion, no mover exists, it cannot be that the
mover exists as a mover independently of the motion. This then
demands an answer to the question, What moves?

In II: 23 Nagarjuna answers this in a very straightforward way:
The mover who is a mover in virtue of his motion (and that motion
is a motion in virtue of being carried out by a mover) is what
moves. Hence, the mover is dependent for his identity as a mover

37. The principle here is the familiar Humean maxim of metaphysical analysis:
Whatever is really distinct is in principle separable.

Examination of Motion

133

on the motion; the motion is dependent for its identity on the
mover. Neither has an intrinsic identity, and both are empty of
inherent existence:

23. A mover does not carry out a different motion

From that by means of which he is manifest as a mover.

Moreover, in one mover

A twofold motion is unacceptable.

24. A really existent mover

Doesn’t move in any of the three ways.

A nonexistent mover

^Doesn’t move in any of the three ways.

The three ways in question are past, present, and future. Some-
thing that is inherently a mover has been shown to be incapable of
motion in any of these periods. This is simply a way of emphasizing
the moral of the entire chapter: Movers cannot be thought of as
being movers intrinsically. Moreover, nonexistent movers — movers
that are not even conventionally movers — certainly don’t move. It
must therefore be that neither do movers move intrinsically nor that
there is no motion. There must be a sense in which motion and
movers exist, but do not do so intrinsically. The final verse must
hence be read with “entity,” “nonentity,” and “existent” as asserted
in the ultimate sense:

25. Neither an entity nor a nonentity

Moves in any of the three ways.

So motion, mover,

And route are nonexistent.

So far so good. But then is motion completely nonexistent? Is
the entire universe static according to Madhyamika philosophy? If
we simply read this chapter in isolation, that conclusion might
indeed seem warranted. It would be hard to distinguish emptiness
from complete nonexistence. We would be left with an illusory
world of change and movement, behind which would lie a static
ultimate reality. But such a reading would be problematic. For one
thing, it would be absurd on its face. Things move and change. For

134

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

another, it would contradict the doctrine of dependent origination
and change that is the very basis of any Buddhist philosophical
system, which Nagarjuna has already endorsed in the opening chap-
ter. How, then, are we to read this discussion more positively?
Answering this question is hermeneutically critical not only for an
understanding of this chapter, but for a reading of the entire text,
which if not read with care, can appear unrelentingly nihilistic.

The positive account we are after emerges when we read this
second chapter in the context of the first chapter; All phenomena,
including motion, are dependently arisen and, hence, empty of
inherent existence. The conclusion that motion is empty is simply
the conclusion that it is conventional and dependent, like the puta-
tively moving entities themselves. Since there is no implicit con-
trastive, inherently existent, ultimate reality — say of the static, or
of stasis — this conclusion does not lead us to ascribe a “second
class” or merely apparent existence to motion or to movers. Their
nonexistence is simply their lack of existence as substantial en-
tities. Existence — of a sort — is hence recovered exactly in the con-
text of an absence of inherent existence.

But existence of what kind? Herein lies the clue to the positive
construction of motion that emerges. The existence that emerges is
a conventional and dependent existence. Motion does not exist as
an entity on this account, but rather as a relation — as the relation
between the positions of a body at distinct times and, hence, as
dependent upon that body and those positions . 38 Moreover, it
emerges as a conventional entity in the following critical sense: Only
to the extent that we make the decision to identify, as a single entity,
things that differ from each other in position over time, but are in
other respects quite similar and form causal chains of a particular
sort, can we say that whatever is so identified moves. And this is a
matter of choice. For we could decide to say that entities that differ
in any respect are thereby distinct. If we did adopt that convention
for individuation, an entity here now and one there then would ipso
facto be distinct entities. And so no single entity could adopt differ-
ent positions (or different properties) at different times, and so
motion and change would be nonexistent. It is this dependence of

38. See also Kalupahana (1986), p. 131.

Examination of Motion

135

motion on the moved, of the status of things as moved on their
motion, and of both on conventions of individuation that, on this
account, constitutes their emptiness. But this simply constitutes
their conventional existence and provides an analysis of the means
by which they so exist. The emptiness of motion is hence seen to be
its existence as conventional and as dependent , not other than its
conventional existence. In understanding its emptiness in this way,
we bring motion, change, and movable and changeable entities back
from the brink of extinction . 39

39. Again, the affinities to Hume are intriguing: The Humean analysis of exter-
nal physical objects and of personal identity appears at first to deny the reality of
either. But what emerges from a more careful reading is that Hume shows that only
the reified substantialist versions of objects and selves are nonexistent. The objects
and selves with which we have actual perceptual and cognitive commerce, on his
view, are perfectly existent, but only in virtue of being dependent upon conventions
(“custom”) for their identity and existence. It is a clear analysis of their conven-
tional character that allows us to coherently assert their existence.

Chapter III

Examination of the Senses

In this chapter, which is most immediately about vision, Nagarjuna
really addresses the status of sense perception generally, as he
makes clear in the opening and closing verses. Just as in Chapter
II, where the target positions Nagarjuna argues against are posi-
tions according to which motion and the mover inherently exist as
distinct, independent, but somehow related entities, here he ar-
gues against positions according to which the sense faculties, the
sense organs, the subject of sensory experience, and the sense
object inherently exist and are distinct, independent, but somehow
related entities. For we do perceive motion and change, and the
argument for the conventional existence of motion did suggest that
it could be seen as a relation between the positions at which we
perceive objects at different times. So one can imagine an oppo-
nent saying, “Even if the motion we perceive is not real, the per-
ception must be.” Again, it will be important for Nagarjuna that
his analysis of perception as empty of inherent existence, and as
merely dependently arisen, does not entail its complete nonexis-
tence. He must, that is, steer a middle path between reification and
nihilism using emptiness as his compass.

1. Seeing, hearing, smelling.

Tasting, touching, and mind
Are the six sense faculties.

Their spheres are the visible objects, etc. . . .

Examination of the Senses

137

This is a standard Buddhist catalog of the sense faculties. It
differs from the standard Western catalog only in that the Bud-
dhists regard introspection literally as an inner sense with the same
epistemic structure as outer senses and presumably subserved by
analogous physical structures. Nagarjuna will not dispute the real-
ity of these faculties or of their respective spheres. But he will
insist that that reality must be characterized interdependently and
conventionally.

2. That very seeing does not see
Itself at all.

How can something that cannot see itself
See another?

This cryptic argument is aimed at any theory according to which
vision is inherently existent. The idea is this: If the visual faculty
were to be inherently existent, then seeing would be its essence. Its
action would hence require no distinct conditions and no external
object to be seen. That is, if vision were inherently existent, vision
would occur simply in virtue of the existence of the visual faculty.
Suppose then that there is an inherently existent visual faculty and
no external sense object for it. It would then have only itself as a
possible object of sight, yet it would be seeing and so would have
to be seeing itself. Therefore, Nagarjuna argues, a view of vision as
inherently existent would entail the possibility of visual appercep-
tion. But there is no such possibility. So the fact that vision can see
other things cannot be in virtue of its containing percipience as an
inherent property.

There is also a plausible Pyrrhonian interpretation of this verse:
The point of a sensory faculty is to make knowledge possible. But
that is only possible if the data the faculty provides are them-
selves perceived. But the data that the visual faculty delivers are
visual. If they themselves are to be perceived, one would require
either another visual faculty, hence generating a vicious regress,
or apperception by vision, which is absurd. The point is not then
that vision is impossible, but rather that visual perception — or
any kind of perception — can only be completely explained and
characterized by reference to things outside of the visual faculty

138

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

itself. Vision is relational, and not an intrinsically identifiable
phenomenon . 40

3. The example of fire

Cannot elucidate seeing.

Along with the moved and not-moved and motion
That has been answered.

This is a reply to a standard substantialist counterexample to a
Madhyamika analysis, specifically: Fire burns other things, but
does not burn itself. And it can be intrinsically identified. Perhaps
then vision is like fire, in that it can see others but not itself, while
it does not need to be relationally identified. This example is a
standard in early Buddhist debates about intrinsic versus relational
identity, and Nagarjuna devotes an entire chapter to its refutation
as a dialectical device (Chapter X), arguing there that fire cannot
be intrinsically identified. But at this point, he is willing to grant
the opponent that premise for the sake of argument. For, he
claims, its utility as an analogy has already been undermined by the
argument in the second chapter.

How? Whatever fire is burning must be burned in the past, the
future, or the present. But, as with motion, burning cannot be, by
its very nature, in the past, on pain of regress. Nor can it be in the
future for the same reason. But burning cannot take place in the
present either, for there is not enough time in an instant for any-
thing to bum. Mutatis mutandis for vision. In the case of vision,
for Nagarjuna, there is a further problem with vision of another in
the present. The visual process — and any sensory process — takes
time. So if vision is seeing another thing, the other thing is already
past. The only thing that vision could see in the present is a visual
sense-impression. But then we are back to the problem of visual
apperception. So even if fire were intrinsically identifiable, there is

40. Iam indebted to the Ven. Gen Lobzang Gyatso for my reading of this verse.
Kalupahana (1986) reads this quite differently — as an empiricist rejection of a
Cartesian cogito argument. Whiie I agree that Nagarjuna has no sympathy with a
Cartesian position, to see this verse as articulating an empiricist view with regard to
self-knowledge seems unmotivated.

Examination of the Senses

139

no point at which it could bum another. And if vision were intrinsi-
cally identifiable, there would be no moment at which it could see
another.

4. When there is not even the slightest

Nonseeing seer,

How could it makes sense to say

That seeing sees?

When all there is to vision is visual perception, what is the motiva-
tion for positing an entity to undertake the process of perception?
All there is to vision is the perceptual process: We don’t need to
posit an entity — the visual faculty over and above the set of interde-
pendent phenomena that subserve vision. The desire to do so is of a
piece with the more general substantialist imperative to posit an
independent substratum to support every capacity or property.

5. Seeing itself does not see.

Nonseeing itself does not see.

Through seeing itself

The clear analysis of the seer is understood.

Perception is not accomplished by any independent entity known
as vision. But that doesn’t mean that things that are incapable of
sight thereby perceive. In order to know what the proper subject of
vision is, it is important to undertake a careful analysis of the percep-
tual process and not simply to posit a faculty with the nature of
vision.

6. Without detachment from vision there is no seer.

Nor is there a seer detached from it.

If there is no seer

How can there be seeing or the seen?

On Nagarjuna’s analysis, we can’t make sense of an autonomous
subject of visual perception. For such a subject would by definition
have its identity as a visual subject independent of perception. But
there is no sense in calling something that does not see a seer. On

140

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

the other hand, if we pack vision into its definition, we thereby fail
to identify the subject nonrelational^. Vision and its subject are
thus relational, dependent phenomena and not substantial or inde-
pendent entities. So neither seeing nor seer nor the seen (con-
ceived of as the object of sense perception) can be posited as
entities with inherent existence. The point is just that sense percep-
tion cannot be understood as an autonomous phenomenon, but
only as a dependent process.

7. Just as the birth of a son is said to occur
In dependence on the mother and father,

So consciousness is said to arise

In dependence on the eye and material form. 41

Here the opponent offers yet another argument in favor of the
inherent existence of the visual faculty (and, by extension, the
other sense faculties): Consciousness is a consequence of vision,
and it surely exists — in fact, its existence, one might say, is self-
validating. Given the reality of the effect, the cause must also be
real . 42 The final two verses reply to this objection and state the
obvious generalization to all other senses, sense objects, sense
faculties, and faculties of knowledge. The reply consists in pointing
out that the other faculties and aggregates, including introspection
and consciousness, exist and fail to exist in exactly the senses that
vision and its objects exist and fail to exist: All are empty of inher-
ent independent existence. But all exist conventionally. So the
effect that, according to this interlocutor, exists inherently and
demands an inherently existent cause does not so exist. And in the
sense that it exists, its causes also exist:

8. From the nonexistence of seeing and the seen it follows that
The other four faculties of knowledge do not exist.

41. The authenticity of this verse is a matter of dispute. It is not present in all
editions of the text and may be a later interpolation.

42. And from the standpoint of a Buddhist analysis of human existence there is
more to it than this: In many presentations of the “twelve links of dependent
origination,” consciousness conditions craving for existence, which gives rise to
existence in samsara.

Examination of the Senses

141

And all the aggregates, 43 etc.,

Are the same way.

9. Like the seen, the heard, the smelled,

The tasted, and the touched,

The hearer, sound, etc.,

And consciousness should be understood.

Again, the point of this chapter is emphatically not that there is
no perception, or that there are no sense faculties, sense organs, or
sense objects. Rather the point is that none of these can be ana-
lyzed successfully as autonomous entities. They are interdepen-
dent phenomena that depend for their existence and their char-
acter on each other. None of them exists independently. They are
all, hence, empty of inherent existence, and carving the process of
perception into these components represents a conventional taxon-
omy of a process that does not present itself with natural joints
demanding cleavage on their own.

43. The skandhas (literally “heaps” or “piles,” but most often translated as
“aggregates”) are the basic constituents of the personality. Five are typically identi-
fied: form (really matter — the physical body), sensation, perception, disposition
(behavioral and cognitive), and consciousness. But the term “skandha” indicates
two features of this decomposition that must be bom in mind to avoid confusion:
The division is practical and empirical, and not philosophically principled, and the
skandhas themselves are decomposible into further heaps, etc. These are not,
hence, ontological fundamentals, but rather the first level of a psychology.

Chapter IV

Examination of the Aggregates

The five aggregates are the basic Buddhist categories of personal
constituents. The first — that discussed as an example in this
chapter — is in Sanskrit rupa, in Tibetan gzugs. Unfortunately,
given the lexicography of Western philosophy, this word has histori-
cally been translated as “form.” This practice is so ubiquitous that I
am loathe to depart from it, despite the confusion it engenders.
For what the word means is matter. The other aggregates are sensa-
tion, perception, intellect, and the dispositions. It is important to
realize that this taxonomy is to be understood pragmatically:
There is no deep doctrinal or philosophical point that hangs on
dividing the properties or capacities of humans up in just this way.
In fact, most often the only important point about analysis in terms
of the aggregates is that humans are composite. The precise nature
of the best decomposition is of interest to psychology and to
soteriological practitioners, but is at bottom, from the standpoint
of the tradition, an empirical matter . 44

This chapter is motivated by the natural suggestion that even if
vision itself is empty, as was argued in the previous chapter, there
must be a truly existent basis for vision in the person and his/her
faculties. For the emptiness of vision was established in part by
showing that perception depends upon the perceiver and the per-

44. That is not, of course, to say that it is arbitrary.

Examination of the Aggregates

143

ceived. And that might seem to suggest that these bases — or at
least the most essential one, the perceiver — truly exist. For then
one could say that whereas vision itself is not inherently existent, it
does exist as a relation between an inherently existent perceiver
and an inherently existent object, or at least as a property of such a
perceiver, even if there is truly no object. 45 Nagarjuna aims to
demonstrate the emptiness of all of the constituents of the person
by taking form as an example and applying arguments that are
general in scope. Form is taken as an example precisely because it
is the most solid, apparently nonempty of the aggregates — the one
that we are most likely to reify. So the program is to use arguments
with application to any of the aggregates and to apply them to the
hardest case. The conclusion Nagarjuna is after is that no decompo-
sition of the person will yield constituents that are themselves inde-
pendent and nonempty.

1. Apart from the cause of form,

Form cannot be conceived.

Apart from form,

The cause of form is not seen.

Nagarjuna begins by making use of the results of the first
chapter. Nothing arises causelessly, and no cause is ineffectual.
So if any form exists, it exists with a cause. And if the cause of
any form exists, so does that form. But there is an interesting
problem to be posed: How about form itself — matter considered
in general, not in its specific instances? Does it have a cause or
not? This question is important because it gets at the question of
whether we can imagine ultimate ontological categories that ex-
ist independently. If form has a cause at all, it must be either
the same or different from form. If the former, we have an
infinite regress. If the latter, then we have the absurd conclusion
that immaterial things can cause material things to come into

45. The reason for this second possibility is the possible presence of an idealist
in the dialectical neighborhood, who might argue that even though neither seeing
nor the seen inherently exists, both exist as illusions of the putative seer, who must
exist, even if only as the subject of delusion.

144

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

existence. If it has no cause, then it cannot be said to exist at
all . 46

2. If apart from the cause of form, there were form,

Form would be without cause.

But nowhere is there an effect
Without a cause.

If form as such exists without any cause, we would have an
example of an inherently existent category. But that would also
violate the principle of dependent origination. That is, both
Nagarjuna and his opponent agree that all phenomena are depen-
dent^ originated, and the discussion in the present chapter is in
fact directed at figuring out just what material form depends on. So
an attempt to posit material form as inherently existent on the
grounds that it comes into existence causelessly is an ad hoc move
that is unavailable to any participant in this debate.

Moreover, Nagarjuna points out in the next verse, if we held
form to be dependent upon a cause that was itself inherently exis-
tent, we would have an inherently existing cause without an inher-
ently existing effect. That putative cause would, hence, fail to be a
cause in the full sense. Between genuine causes and their effects
there is a relation of dependence. For something to count as a
cause independent of its producing an effect would be incoherent.
But since in the context of inherent existence merely conventional
existence counts as no existence at all, an inherently existent cause
with a merely conventionally existent effect would count just as
much as an ineffective cause. So neither can we make sense of an
inherently existent cause of the existence of material form if mate-
rial form is held not to be inherently existent.

46. We must understand “form” in this context to designate physical reality as a
whole, including matter and energy. We can presume (bypassing hagiographic con-
siderations) that Nagarjuna was unaware of the relativistic understanding of the
interchangeability of these two; but it is clear that, from the standpoint of “ skandha
theory,” the operative contrast is between the physical and the nonphysical. (And
here, given the antisubstantial metaphysics in play, “nonphysical” does not mean
made of spook stuff.) Form is just whatever is succeptible of physical description
and explanation. Many kinds of supervenience are compatible with the decomposi-
tion suggested by Buddhist psychology.

Examination of the Aggregates

145

3. If apart from form

There were a cause of form,

It would be a cause without an effect.

But there are no causes without effects.

4. When form exists,

A cause of the arising of form is not tenable.

When form is nonexistent,

A cause of the arising of form is not tenable.

Any relationship between form and a putative cause is unintelli-
gible, Nagarjuna argues, following closely the reasoning in Chap-
ter I. If form exists, the cause has ceased to exist. If form does
not exist, the cause cannot have existed. This might seem at first
glance to be a wholesale rejection of the possibility of depen-
dency of effects on causal conditions. But if we recall the moral of
Chapter I and keep the dialectical context of the current chapter
firmly in mind we will see that this is not so: The paradox of
causal contact arises — as Sextus also notes — only if we suppose
that the causes we appeal to in explanation must have some spe-
cial force by means of which they bring about their effects. That,
as we have seen, is the view of the causal link as inherently
existent and, hence, of causes as inherently existent. The oppo-
nent Nagarjuna is attacking in this chapter is one who thinks that
form/matter is inherently existent, but who has granted that all
individual phenomena — all particular forms, such as human bod-
ies, tables, and chairs— are dependently arisen. So the opponent
agrees that all phenomena must be explicable. But the opponent
wants to reify form, and that is to treat it as a phenomenon —
albeit an inherently existent one. Therefore, it must, for the oppo-
nent, have an explanation of its existence, and since its existence
is inherent existence, it must be an explanation in terms of inher-
ently existent causation. So all that Nagarjuna has to do is to
remind the opponent of the incoherence of that notion in order to
undermine the view that form as such is inherently existent. The
coherence of conventional dependent origination is not at issue.

5. Form itself without a cause
Is not possible or tenable.

146

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Therefore, think about form, but
Do not construct theories about form.

The moral of these arguments, Nagarjuna concludes, is that we
cannot think of form as such as an entity at all. Individual forms
are entities — dependently arisen ones, hence, empty of inherent
existence. But form itself is an abstraction, neither caused nor
uncaused, but dependent upon the existence of material things
with form. (Moreover, were one to argue that form itself exists as
an entity, one would be faced with an uncomfortable dilemma: Its
existence would be caused or uncaused. The latter alternative
patently begs the question regarding the explanation of the exis-
tence of the material world. But the former issues in a further
dilemma: The cause would either itself be material or immaterial.
On the first horn, we have an infinite regress; on the second, the
inexplicable causation of the material by the immaterial .) 47 So, he
advises, think carefully about what form is and about the nature
of particular material objects. But do not construct theories that
purport to describe the essence of material form. For there is no
such thing. It is simply a characteristic of individual material ob-
jects and, hence, something that depends upon their existence,
with no essence of its own.

6. The assertion that the effect and cause are similar
Is not acceptable.

The assertion that they are not similar
Is also not acceptable.

We cannot say that nonmaterial things give rise to the existence
of matter, for that would be an inexplicable miracle. Nor can we
say that matter gives rise to matter, since that would beg the ques-
tion. But there is no other possibility. So despite the reificationist’s
intuition that though individual material objects may be empty, the
matter they are made of is nonempty, we see that we cannot even
clearly conceive of the nature of matter as such independently of
material objects. Matter, too, is hence dependent and empty of

47. See also Kalupahana (1986), p. 38, for a similar analysis.

Examination of the Aggregates 147

inherent existence. Nagarjuna immediately generalizes this to the
other aggregates:

7. Feelings, discriminations and dispositions
And consciousness and all such things
Should be thought of

In the same way as material form.

8. When an analysis is made through emptiness,

If someone were to offer a reply,

That reply will fail, since it will presuppose
Exactly what is to be proven.

9. When an explanation is made through emptiness.

Whoever would find fault with it

Will find no fault, since the criticism will presuppose
Exactly what is to be proven.

In these last two oft-quoted verses, Nagarjuna claims that once a
demonstration of the emptiness of a phenomenon oj class of phe-
nomena has been produced, any reply will inevitably beg the ques-
tion. And this is meant to have been demonstrated by the argument
in this chapter in the following way: Once we have shown something
to be empty of inherent existence, we have, ipso facto, shown it to
be dependently arisen and merely conventionally real. Anything an
opponent would want to demonstrate to be inherently existent
would fall prey to the causal paradoxes developed in this chapter.
That is, he must either assume that the thing is completely indepen-
dent and causeless, which is, upon analysis, exactly equivalent to the
conclusion he is out to prove, or that it arises from another inher-
ently existent phenomenon. But then in order to demonstrate that
fact, he must demonstrate the inherent existence of that second
phenomenon (as well as the inherent dependence relation between
them — a kind of relation we have seen to be internally contradic-
tory). And this is true no matter to which ontological category the
putatively inherently existent phenomenon belongs.

That this is so should not be surprising, for the central thrust of
Nagarjuna’s arguments thus far, and throughout Mulamadhyama -
kakarika, is not that inherent existence is a property some things
might have had but by global accident is uninstantiated or that

148

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

emptiness just happens to characterize all phenomena. Rather he
is arguing that inherent existence is simply an incoherent notion
and that emptiness is the only possible analysis of existence. It
would follow straightforwardly that arguments for inherent exis-
tence will be question begging . 48

48. Kalupahana (1986), p. 145, sees a different question being begged. He
writes:

The argument in favor of dependence is experience. Hence, the person present-
ing a refutation of this idea should be in a position not only to negate “mutual
dependence” but also to provide evidence for the establishment of a metaphysi-
cal substance (svabhSva). This has not yet been achieved. Thus, according to
NSgSrjuna, what still remains to be proved is the thesis regarding “substance”
rather than mutual dependence.

While this analysis is consistent with Kalupahana’s interpretation of N&g&rjuna as a
pragmatically inclined empiricist, I do not see it as an accurate rendering of the
argument here. In particular, it ignores the emphasis on emptiness in these verses.

Chapter V

Examination of Elements

This chapter examines the ontological status of characteristics and
the characterized, or in more familiar terms, properties and indi-
viduals. The question, as always, is this: Does it make sense to
think of either as existing independently, substantially, or funda-
mentally? Or, on the other hand, are they mutually interdependent
and therefore empty? The example Nagarjuna chooses to focus on
is space since it is one of the six primal elements according to
classical Buddhist cosmology. 49 If he can show that these elements
must be understood as neither inherently existing entities nor as
inherently existing characteristics of entities, he will have shown
that no ontological decomposition of phenomena into their pri-
mary constituents yields inherently existing constituents. More-
over, according to some early Buddhist schools, each of the primal
elements has a distinguishing characteristic and, hence, an essence.
So, Nagarjuna is addressing his opponent on the opponent’s home
turf. If any entities or characteristics have essences, these do.

1 . Prior to a characteristic 50 of space
There is not the slightest space.

49. The others are earth, water, fire, air, and consciousness.

50. The sense of “characteristic” ( mtsan nyid) is that of a distinguishing charac-
teristic, or a characteristic mark or signature of a thing. I therefore use the singular
here. (I owe this suggestion to the Ven. Gareth Sparham.) But the points that
NSgfirjuna makes are perfectly general and could as well be made using “characteris-
tics,” as Inada (1970) and Kalupahana (1986) do.

150

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

If it arose prior to the characteristic

Then it would, absurdly, arise without a characteristic.

Space cannot exist as a completely uncharacterized entity that
then somehow acquires characteristics. Anything that exists has
some properties and cannot be identified or characterized indepen-
dently of them.

2. A thing without a characteristic
Has never existed.

If nothing lacks a characteristic,

Where do characteristics come to be?

So we can conclude that everything has characteristics. But
maybe these characteristics exist inherently, independently of the
things, and then come to be associated with them. On such a view,
while individuals would not have inherent existence, properties
would.

3. Neither in the uncharacterized nor in the characterized
Does a characteristic arise.

Nor does it arise

In something different from these two.

But there is a problem. If a characteristic were inherently exis-
tent, it would have to become instantiated in either a characterized
or an uncharacterized object. But there are no uncharacterized
objects, and if the object already is characterized, there is no need
for the characteristic to become instantiated. So to think of indi-
viduals and properties as existing independently and then some-
how coming together to constitute particulars makes no sense.

4. If characteristics do not appear,

Then it is not tenable to posit the characterized object.

If the characterized object is not posited.

There will be no characteristic either.

But if we were to go completely eliminativist with respect to
characteristics, we would lose the ability to posit both actual ob-

Examination of Elements 151

jects with characteristics and characteristics that actual objects
share.

5. From this it follows that there is no characterized

And no existing characteristic.

Nor is there any entity

Other than the characterized and the characteristic.

In the first two lines of this verse, Nagarjuna draws the conclu-
sion that there are no inherently existent characteristics and no
inherently existent characterized entities. Entities and their proper-
ties are mutually dependent and, hence, empty of inherent exis-
tence. But this does not mean, he emphasizes in the final two lines,
that there is some other ontology of inherently existent basic types
that could replace them. Indeed particulars can be thought of as
characterized entities, with characteristics; but this does not entail
the independent existence of entities of either of those types.

6. If there is no existent thing,

Of what will there be nonexistence?

Apart from existent and nonexistent things

Who knows existence and nonexistence?

Here Nagarjuna generalizes the conclusion and indicates its
larger ontological implications. Having shown that there are no
inherently existent things, it might seem that it follows that all
things are inherently nonexistent. But existence and nonexistence,
after all, are characteristics. So it follows that neither existence nor
nonexistence can be said to exist independently and hence to char-
acterize, inherently, anything. Moreover, since no particulars can
be said inherently to exist, and thereby characterized as inherently
existing things, none can be said to be inherently nonexistent.
Existence and nonexistence are hence themselves dependent, rela-
tive characteristics. It is, of course, important to recall that this
entire dialectic is aimed at nonrelative understandings of existence
and nonexistence. Nagarjuna is not arguing that nothing exists in
any sense and that nothing fails to exist in any sense. Rather, he is
arguing that nothing exists in virtue of instantiating an indepen-

152

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

dently existent property of existence. Similarly, things do not fail
to exist in virtue of instantiating the property nonexistence.

7. Therefore, space is not an entity.

It is not a nonentity.

Not characterized, not without character.

The same is true of the other five elements.

Nagarjuna now returns to the example at hand to sum up the
conclusions of the chapter. Things cannot be analyzed ontologi-
cally as particulars existing independently of their properties. But
this does not mean that individual things do not exist. They do not
possess independently existing properties. But this does not mean
that things are all property less.

8. Fools and reificationists who perceive

The existence and nonexistence

Of objects

Do not see the pacification of objectification.

This is the soteriological import of this discussion of fundamen-
tal ontology: If one reifies phenomena — including such things as
one’s own self, characteristics (prominently including one’s own),
or external objects — and if one thinks that things either fail to exist
or exist absolutely, one will be unable to attain any peace. For one
will thereby be subject to egoism, the overvaluing of oneself and
one’s achievements and of material things. One will not appreciate
the possibility of change, of the impermanence and nonsubstan-
tiality of oneself and one’s possessions. These are the seeds of
grasping and craving and, hence, of suffering. The alternative,
Nagarjuna suggests, and the path to pacification, is to see oneself
and other entities as non-substantial, impermanent, and subject to
change and not as appropriate objects of such passionate craving.

Chapter VI

Examination of Desire and
the Desirous

This chapter represents a continuation of the discussion begun in
the previous one. That is, while the chapter is nominally about
desire, an example chosen for its obvious soteriological signifi-
cance, it is in a larger sense a further discussion of the relation
between entities and their properties, with specific attention to the
relation between human beings and their psychological characteris-
tics. Locating the discussion at this point is consonant with a tradi-
tion of Mahayana discussions of emptiness in which one first ad-
dresses external phenomena, which are both easier to analyze and
less succeptible of reification than the self, and then generalizes
the discussion to human psychological phenomena . 51 The chapter
opens with an echo of the discussion of space:

1 . If prior to desire

And without desire there were a desirous one,

Desire would depend on him.

Desire would exist when there is a desirous one.

51. See, e.g., the Heart Sutra , with its famous discussion of the emptiness
of the aggregates that begins with form and then moves to the psychological
aggregates.

154

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

One possibility for the relationship between the subject of desire
and the desire is that the desirous one exists qua desirous one
independently of the desire, which is then adventitious and depen-
dent. That is, on this view the desirous one is inherently desirous,
but the desire is merely dependent. This, however, is problematic,
for then there is a real contrast in the mode of existence of the
desirous one and the desire: The desirous one truly exists, but the
desire does not truly exist. But if there is no real desire, in virtue of
what is there a desirous one?

2. Were there no desirous one, moreover,

Where would desire occur?

Whether or not desire or the desirous one exist,

The analysis would be the same.

But if there is no desirous one, there is no ontological basis for
the desire. So whether we posit an inherently existent desirous one
or no desirous one at all, we cannot identify desire as existing.
And, of course, this goes for any characteristic or psychological
attribute and for any subject of any such attribute identified under
any description. Moreover, the converse is also true: Whether or
not we posit inherently existent desire, we cannot thereby establish
the existence of a substantially existent desirous one. If the desire
does not exist inherently but only dependently, that dependence in
no way presupposes an independent basis. If on the other hand
desire is posited as inherently existent, there would be no need for
a basis in a desirous one at all. In neither case would the substan-
tial existence of the entity in question (subject or attitude) have
any import for the reality of the correlative entity (attitude or
subject). And the reason for this is simply that inherent existence is
not relational existence. Since desire and the desirous one must be
understood as interrelated, they must be understood as mutually
dependent.

3. Desire and the desirous one
Cannot arise together.

In that case, desire and the desirous one
Would not be mutually contingent.

Examination of Desire and the Desirous 155

Another possibility the opponent might suggest is this: Desire
and the desirous one come into inherent existence at the same
time. It is very important in following this argument to remember
Nagarjuna’s dialectical task. The opponent against whom his reduc-
tios are aimed is one who attributes inherent existence either to the
desirous one, to desire, or both. Nagarjuna is only attempting to
show that attributing to them that kind of existence is incoherent —
not that there is no desire and that there are no desirous people at
all. That would be crazy. Fundamental to the Buddhist conception
of the predicament of human existence is the centrality of craving
to the arising of suffering. But also fundamental is the conviction
that there can be a release from craving. That is only possible,
however, if craving is dependently originated since only then could
the conditions that determine its arising be eliminated. So it is
critically important from a Buddhist perspective to come to a com-
plete understanding of the nature of desire, and the mode of its
existence, and it would be inconceivable to deny its existence com-
pletely. But Nagarjuna is emphasizing here that that understanding
must reveal them as mutually dependent in order to avoid the
absurd conclusion that either could exist without the other. That
precludes the assertion that while they in fact always co-occur, that
co-occurrence is not through interdependence, but through contin-
gent simultaneity of independent phenomena.

Nagarjuna’s claim in VI: 3 is also the conclusion of the argument
that is about to follow. It proceeds by means of a destructive di-
lemma. Given that the opponent must have desire and the desirous
one arising simultaneously, they must be either identical or differ-
ent. Nagarjuna will show that neither alternative is coherent; VI: 4
spells out this strategy:

4. In identity there is no simultaneity.

A thing is not simultaneous with itself.

But if there is difference,

Then how would there be simultaneity?

In the first line of this verse, Nagarjuna points out the relational
character of simultaneity. If simultaneity is predicated, it must be
predicated of two distinct things that arise at the same time. We

156

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

don’t say that a thing arises simultaneously with itself. But if things
are completely distinct in nature, they cannot co-occur in the same
place, that is; if desire and the desirous one had distinct essences,
they could not be in the same place at the same time.

5. If in identity there were simultaneity,

Then it could occur without association.

If in difference there were simultaneity,

It could occur without association.

The first claim is meant to be a reductio on the view that
simultaneous things can be identical. For suppose that there was
an apparent pair of events whose simultaneity was in question,
say William Clinton’s uttering of the oath of office of the presi-
dency and the inauguration of the first president from Arkansas.
If there is every reason to believe that these events are distinct
but occur at the same time, it is then appropriate to say that they
are simultaneous. But if we know that there is in fact only one
event, it is at best a joke to assert its simultaneity with itself. The
proper thing to say then would be not that the oath taking was
simultaneous with the inauguration but that it was identical to the
inauguration. The term translated as “association” here ( grogs -
pa) can also mean friendship, or companionship — the idea is of
something distinct but accompanying. For the inauguration and
the oath taking to be associated would be for them to be, say,
accompanying rituals that could in principle occur independently.
But if they could occur independently, they cannot be identical.
Simultaneity requires association of some kind. But identity is
incompatible with association.

The second claim is meant to be a reductio on the view that
simultaneous and associated things could be different in nature.
Difference, like identity, is incompatible with association, though
for a different reason. The kind of difference at issue here is essen-
tial difference. Nagarjuna’s claim is that things that are completely
different from one another, that are completely independent, ipso
facto, stand in no relation to one another and so are not associ-
ated. This is another application of the Humean (and Tractarian)
argument Nagarjuna has mobilized above: If phenomena are

Examination of Desire and the Desirous 157

distinct — indeed, being simultaneous, they are not even argued to
be causally related — they can be imagined to be separate. So they
are then logically independent. But that would then entail that if
desire and the desirous one were different in this strong sense, we
could imagine a desirous one without desire, and vice versa. But
that is of course absurd. So if desire and the desirous one are
supposed to arise simultaneously, they can neither be identical nor
different. Of course, since any inherently different entities, in vir-
tue of having determinate natures, are either identical or different,
it follows that desire or the desirous one are either nonsimultane-
ous or empty of inherent existence.

6. If in difference there were simultaneity,

How could desire and the desirous one,

Being different, be established?

If they were, they would be simultaneous.

This last verse emphasizes and spells out the point scouted
above: We are left with a hard choice once we conceive of desire
and the desirous one as entities. If desire and the desirous one are
conceived as substantially different but simultaneous, we would
have to be able to establish the nature and existence of each inde-
pendent of the other. That is no easy task. If we could accomplish
it, simultaneity would be a satisfactory solution to the dilemma.
But of course we cannot. Moreover, Nagarjuna argues in the next
verse, if they are completely different, we are left with the peculiar
task of explaining why they always go together. And asserting their
simultaneity forces this problem:

7. If desire and the desirous one
Are established as different,

Then why would you think
That they are simultaneous?

8. Since difference is not established,

If you assert that they are simultaneous,

Since they are established as simultaneous,

Do you also assert that they are different?

158

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

We have not established — nor could we — that desire and the
desirous one are substantially different. But the opponent wishes
to assert their simultaneity. Given the entailment of difference by
simultaneity as per the argument above, this would force the oppo-
nent to assume the impossible burden of demonstrating this sub-
stantial difference.

The whole quandary is summed up in VI: 9. Since we can’t
establish their difference in entity, we can’t establish the claim that
desire and the desirous one arise as distinct, simultaneous phenom-
ena. We don’t even have two phenomena to serve as the relata of
difference:

9. Since nothing different has been established,

If one is asserting simultaneity.

Which different thing

Do you want to say is simultaneous?

The conclusion, as stated in the special case in the preceding
verse, is generalized in the final verse of the chapter. Once we
think of entities and their properties — in particular, ourselves and
our characteristics — as independently characterized things, we can
make no sense of how they fit together temporally, logically, or
ontologically. It is important that objects and their characteristics,
persons and their states, be unified. But if we introduce essence
and entity into our ontology, this will be impossible:

10. Thus desire and the desirous one

Cannot be established as simultaneous or not simultaneous.

So, like desire, nothing whatever
Can be established either as simultaneous or as
nonsimultaneous.

As always, however, we must remind ourselves of the sense of
the conclusion and of its dialectical context. There is no denial here
of the possibility of simultaneity, of the existence of desire, or of
the possibility of desirous persons. Rather, there is a denial that
any of these things make sense in the context of inherent existence.

Chapter VII

Examination of the Conditioned

Having begun the text with an examination of the relation of depen-
dency between phenomena, and having then conducted an analysis
of the fundamental ontological constituents of reality, Nagarjuna
now brings these two analyses together in a long chapter investigat-
ing the nature of the world of conditioned things as a whole. The
target position is the view that dependent arising itself, as well as
dependently arisen things, are either inherently existent or com-
pletely nonexistent. There are really two positions here with which
Nagarjuna must contend: First, the reificationist opponent charges
that even if we grant Nagarjuna’s earlier arguments for the conclu-
sion that phenomena themselves are empty because they are de-
pendently arisen, dependent arising itself must inherently exist.
For only if phenomena are truly dependently arisen, one might
argue, are they truly empty. Second, Nagarjuna must answer the
following objection: If dependent arising is empty, then arising,
stasis, and cessation are nonexistent. Hence there are, in fact, no
phenomena since phenomena are defined — particularly in a Bud-
dhist context — as those things that arise, remain, and cease. But
clearly there are actual empirical phenomena; indeed, such phe-
nomena must exist for Nagarjuna’s claim that they are empty to
make any sense at all. How can this be reconciled with the empti-
ness of dependent arising?

160

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

1. If arising were produced 52

Then it would also have the three characteristics.

If arising is not produced,

How could the characteristics of the produced exist?

The three characteristics in question are arising, stasis, and cessa-
tion. On a standard Buddhist view, all phenomena come into being
in dependence upon conditions, remain in existence dependent
upon conditions, and cease to exist dependent upon conditions.
This is the core of the two central doctrines of dependent arising
and impermanence. Nagarjuna here poses a problem: If depen-
dent arising itself were produced by conditions, then it itself would
have these three characteristics and, apparently paradoxically, be
impermanent. This is prima facie paradoxical just because if depen-
dent arising is impermanent, it would appear that sometimes things
don’t arise dependently, which contradicts the thesis that all phe-
nomena are dependently arisen. Moreover, as Nagarjuna will ar-
gue below, this assertion threatens a vicious regress — if arising
arises, there must already be arising in virtue of which it does so.

But, Nagarjuna asks in the third and fourth lines, if dependent
arising is not produced, where did it come from? If one were to say
that dependent arising were not produced and, hence, that it does
not depend for its existence on anything else, this would appear to
contradict the thesis that everything arises dependently. Depen-
dent arising itself would then be the counterexample to the thesis.

2. If the three, arising, etc., are separate,

They cannot function as the characteristics of the produced.

But how could they be joined

In one thing simultaneously?

52. “du byed. ” This term is sometimes appropriately translated as “disposition,”
“action,” or “compounded.” Context is crucial in determining which rendering is
best. In Buddhist metaphysics these meanings are closely connected. Kalupahana
(1986) uses “conditioned,” though he interprets this to mean “conditioned by dispo-
sitions.” He argues that this chapter is closely connected to the previous chapter in
that lust “is operative in the perceptual process especially in the formation of ideas
derived from experience.” He argues that this chapter is devoted to an examination
of the way phenomena such as desire determine the formation of ideas from “the
blooming, buzzing confusion” of sense experience (p. 159). I find this reading
unsupported by the text.

Examination of the Conditioned

161

These three characteristics, if they characterize the phenomenon
of dependent arising itself, must either be present separately or
together. This furnishes the basis of a destructive dilemma. If they
are separate, then some parts of dependent arising have one of the
three; some another. Some are arising; some abiding; some ceasing.
But this is problematic since all phenomena are said to arise, to
abide, and to cease . 53 So it would seem to be the case that if depen-
dent arising itself has all three of these characteristics, it cannot have
them separately, but must have them jointly and simultaneously.

But the three characteristics could not be present simultaneously
since they are mutually contradictory. At any one point, depen-
dent arising could have only one of them. The same thing cannot
be — in the same sense, at the same time — arising and ceasing
when these are understood in the sense at issue here, that intro-
duced by the substantialist opponent. It is important in order to
understand this argument to keep the dialectical context firmly in
mind. The opponent throughout the text, whether on the nihilist
side or on the reificationist side, considers existence to be inherent
existence and predication to be the ascription of really existent
properties to substantial bases. For the opponent Nagarjuna has in
mind here, dependent arising— if it is the nature of things at all —
must inherently exist. It must therefore have the three characteris-
tics inherently. To have a characteristic inherently is to have it
essentially. But then dependent arising, for the opponent, would
have a contradictory set of essential properties.

53. Moreover, one would not want to say that sometimes dependent arising is
arising, sometimes abiding, sometimes ceasing. The whole Buddhist picture of im-
permanence is one according to which these processes are always co-occurring. But
this dialectical move is not available to Nagarjuna at this stage of the discussion. It
would beg the question in a critical sense: The properties under analysis here, as well
as dependent arising itself, are introduced by the opponent as candidates for inherent
existence and as components of an analysis of the ultimate nature of phenomena. In
the sense that they are deployed in a positive Buddhist account of the nature of
conventional reality — the sense in which all phenomena are constantly arising in
some sense, abiding through change in another, and ceasing in yet another — neither
the phenomena to which these predicates are applied, nor the properties ascribed,
are inherently existent. Quite the contrary; this is an analysis that is designed to
demonstrate the lack of inherent existence of phenomena and their characteristics. It
is important throughout the discussion that follows to bear in mind that Nagarjuna is
not subjecting this view to criticism, but its substantialist cousin.

162

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

3. If arising, abiding, and ceasing

Have characteristics other than those of the produced,

There would be an infinite regress.

If they don’t, they would not be produced.

The other possibility is that dependent arising has some other
characteristics — that is, characteristics other than those that all phe-
nomena have in virtue of being dependently arisen. But we could
then ask about the characteristics of those characteristics. Do those
characteristics arise, abide, or perish? If so, the original regress has
not been stopped. Another possibility is that arising, abiding, and
perishing do not have characteristics at all. But if not, then they are
not phenomena in any ordinary sense at all. While that would cut off
the regress, it would do so without achieving any explanation, or any
analysis of the kind originally sought, and would leave an uncomfort-
able paradox: We started seeking an understanding of dependent
arising as inherently existent. But its inherent existence requires the
inherent existence of arising, cessation, and stasis, all of which now
come out to be ontologically sui generis. The further paradox is this:
For dependent arising to exist inherently, these three should turn
out to be essential properties of all phenomena. But on the alterna-
tive under consideration, they are not properties at all.

We might, of course, try to extend this horn of the dilemma by
suggesting that although arising, abiding, and ceasing are not phe-
nomena in the ordinary sense, they are characteristics of sonie spe-
cial kind. We then seem to have a more curious regress; new ad hoc
characteristics arise at each level of analysis. The regress here is an
interesting one because its viciousness consists not in the same basis
being required for each putatively basic posit, but in there being no
principle available to determine a basis for any putative basic posit
despite a principle that urges that there must be one. The point that
Nagarjuna is after, of course, is that this principle itself — that there
must be an explanatory basis, an independent entity that has charac-
teristics, as an explanation of the occurrence of any characteristic —
is what generates the regress and must be rejected.

There is, of course, a third alternative. These three might nei-
ther have characteristics different from those possessed by ordi-
nary phenomena nor have no characteristics at all: They might

Examination of the Conditioned

163

indeed have the very trio of characteristics that all ordinary phe-
nomena have, namely, arising, abiding, and ceasing. It is this alter-
native that occupies Nagarjuna for the remainder of the chapter.
This alternative is interesting dialectically in that, on the one hand,
it represents the most natural way to approach an analysis of depen-
dent arising, namely, by consistently predicating it of everything,
hence suggesting that it is indeed a candidate for an essence of
things. On the other hand, as we shall see, that very move pre-
cludes treating it as a genuine essence since essences turn out to
lack precisely the properties that we must universalize here.

4. The arising of arising only gives rise
To the basic arising.

The arising of the basic arising
Gives rise to arising.

This is the opponent speaking. He suggests that dependent aris-
ing arises from a more basic arising. This basic arising comes to be,
but not on the basis of anything else. The idea, defended by some
earlier Buddhist schools, is this: There are two levels of dependent
arising. The more superficial is the relationship of mutual depen-
dence of all phenomena, issuing in their impermanence. But this
interdependence, on this view, is itself dependency arisen. It de-
pends on a basic arising — a mere fact of interdependent origina-
tion, which gives rise to the more specific empirical relations we
see. So in the first two lines of this verse, the opponent says that
when arising itself is considered in isolation, all that we have is the
basic arising. In the third and fourth lines, the opponent says that
when that arising has arisen, it gives rise to the more superficial
ordinary dependent arising. It is, then, that basic arising that is
posited as ontologically foundational.

5. If, as you say, the arising of arising
Gives rise to the basic arising,

How, according to you, does this,

Not arisen from the basic arising, give rise to that?

But Nagarjuna makes the obvious move in reply: Does the basic
arising arise from a more basic arising, or is it somehow unarisen

164

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

(eternal or inexplicable)? If the former, then we seem to have an
infinite regress; if the latter, a petitio principii. Nagarjuna makes
some of the numerous difficulties that afflict this view explicit in
the next two verses:

6. If, as you say, that .which is arisen from basic arising
Gives rise to the basis,

How does that nonarisen basis
Give rise to it?

The account is either circular or regressive. If the basic arising is
held to arise in dependence on other dependently originated phe-
nomena, and dependent arising is explained as dependent upon
the basic arising, then the basis is posited as dependent upon that
which it explains, and we have a vicious circle. If on the other hand
the phenomena on which the basis depends are other than those it
explains, and the phenomena themselves depend upon yet another
basis, we have a vicious regress.

In the next verse, Nagarjuna points out the question-begging
alternative reading of the enterprise. He notes that one may ex-
plain that dependent arising arises through basic arising without
circles or regresses, but only by positing the basis as itself non-
arisen. This, of course, flies in the face of the demand that moti-
vates positing it in the first place — namely, the demand that every
phenomenon, including dependent arising, be explained by some
ontologically more fundamental phenomenon:

7. If this nonarisen
Could give rise to that,

Then, as you wish,

It will give rise to that which is arising.

The opponent now suggests another reply. Using the analogy of
a lamp that illuminates both itself and others, he argues that aris-
ing can give rise to itself and to others. This would, from the
standpoint of the reificationist, have the happy consequence that
while other phenomena would be dependent on dependent arising,
dependent arising would be independent and nonempty:

Examination of the Conditioned

165

8. Just as a butterlamp
Illuminates itself as well as others.

So arising gives rise to itself
And to other arisen things.

Nagarjuna now launches a lengthy critique of the example, argu-
ing that the relation between the butterlamp and what it illumi-
nates is not one that supports a notion of an inherently existent
basis on which things that are not inherently existent can depend:

9. In the butterlamp and its place,

There is no darkness.

What then does the butterlamp illuminate?

For illumination is the clearing of darkness.

Here Nagarjuna is emphasizing a disanalogy between the rela-
tion between the butterlamp and what it illuminates, and the puta-
tive relation between dependent arising and what it depends upon.
The opponent who wields the example does so in order to demon-
strate a difference in status between dependent arising and the
dependently arisen. Dependent arising is meant not to be depen-
dent^ arisen, despite the fact that all dependently arisen phenom-
ena are. So the appropriate analogy in the case of the lamp would
map this difference in status between being dependently arisen and
being independent onto the difference between being illuminated
and not being illuminated. The problem, though, is that in the
example there is nothing that is not illuminated: Everything in the
neighborhood of the lamp is illuminated just as is the lamp.

It was standard philosophical fare in the Buddhist tradition
within which Nagarjuna was working to see darkness as a positive
phenomenon. So to the extent that one adopted a reified ontology,
darkness would be reified as easily as light. The attack on the
butterlamp analogy can thus effectively exploit the difficulties
Nagarjuna has already developed for theories that require inher-
ently existent things to be related to one another. But it is impor-
tant to see that even if one is not disposed to reify darkness, and
regards it as the mere absence of light, to the extent that one reifies
light, Nagarjuna can argue that one will be compelled to reify

166

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

darkness as well. For if light exists inherently, then wherever light
is not present it is essentially not present. And the essential
nonpresence of light is essential darkness.

10. If the arising butterlamp
Does not reach darkness,

How could that arising butterlamp
Have cleared the darkness?

Moreover, argues Nagarjuna, the example itself does not bear
close scrutiny as a case of an entity with some inherent power giving
rise to a set of effects that depend upon it. For the task of the
butterlamp is the clearing of darkness — or the production of illumi-
nation . Now the production of light and the clearing of darkness are ,
Nagarjuna claims, equivalent. So, if the butterlamp illuminates ob-
jects by its light reaching them, it should clear darkness by means of
its light reaching darkness. But that would be for light and darkness
to be present in the same place, which is contradictory.

11. If the illumination of darkness occurs
Without the butterlamp reaching darkness,

All of the darkness in the world

Should be illuminated.

If it is not necessary, on the other hand, for the light of the butter-
lamp to reach darkness in order to dispel it, since there is a lot of
darkness in the world not reached by any single butterlamp, that
butterlamp should be capable of dispelling all of that darkness.

12. If, when it is illuminated,

The butterlamp illuminates itself and others,

Darkness should, without a doubt,

Conceal itself and others.

Finally, Nagarjuna argues, if we are seriously to maintain that
the butterlamp illuminates itself and others through a luminous
essence, then since the essence of darkness is to conceal things,
and things with such essences affect themselves and others, we
should expect darkness to be self-concealing. But then we would
not see darkness.

Examination of the Conditioned

167

The point of all of this is not that we can’t see lamps when they
are lit or that we can when they aren’t. Rather it is that the mecha-
nism by which we see what we see when a lamp is lit is the same
whether we are seeing the lamp or other things. To put it in contem-
porary terms, photons reach our eyes from the lamp or from its
flame in the same way they do from the other physical objects in
the neighborhood. And just as the visibility of the things in the
neighborhood is dependent on a host of conditions, so is the visibil-
ity of the lamp. So we do not have even an analogy to a case where
the status of dependent arising would be distinct from that of the
dependently arisen.

13. How could this arising, being nonarisen,

Give rise to itself?

And if it is arisen from another,

Having arisen, what is the need for another arising?

Here Nagarjuna is bringing us back to the original argument and
reminding us of the reificationist’s uncomfortable choice between
a vicious regress and a begged question. If every arisen thing de-
pends on an ontologically prior arising, we have an infinite regress.
For each arising will require such a foundation. But if we cut off
the regress by presupposing at some level a nonarisen dependent
arising, we have to ask why that level is exempt from the need for
explanation. Nagarjuna now announces the conclusion he will de-
fend in the next section of the chapter:

14. The arisen, the non-arisen and that which is arising
Do not arise in any way at all.

Thus they should be understood

Just like the gone, the not-gone, and the going.

Recall the analysis of motion: Nagarjuna argued that no entity
answering to “motion” could be found in an entity that was in
motion in the past, nor in an entity yet to move, nor in a currently
moving entity. Motion had to be understood relationally and not as
an entity. Using similar reasoning, Nagarjuna will now argue that
arising cannot be found as an entity in something not yet arisen,

168

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

nor in something that has already arisen, nor in something yet to
arise. Arising will also fail to be an entity and will have to be
understood relationally. This will provide the key both to the refu-
tation of the position that underlies both extreme positions — that
for arising to exist, it must exist inherently — and to the construc-
tion of a coherent positive account of dependent arising. The next
three verses begin a sketch of dependent arising as empty, connect-
ing this fact with the emptiness of dependently arisen phenomena:

15. When there is arising but not yet
That which is arising,

How can we say that that which is arising
Depends on this arising?

Nagarjuna here suggests that the way the reificationist has gone
about posing the philosophical problem about the status of depen-
dent arising itself is all wrong. The initial presumption at the basis
of this debate is that arisen entities arise from an independently
existing process of dependent arising. But this is wrongheaded in
at least two ways: First, phenomena arise from other phenomena,
not from arising. So, for instance, if I strike a match, the fire
emerges from the friction, the sulphur, the oxygen, my desire for
light, and so forth, but not from dependent arising itself. That is a
fact at a different level of analysis, which itself comprises the net-
work of relationships just indicated. Second, if the existence of the
process of arising antedates the existence of the arisen, it cannot be
a sufficient condition or a complete explanation of the arisen. For
if it were, the arisen would then exist. That being so, Nagarjuna
asks, “Why posit dependent arising itself as a phenomenon within
the framework of dependent arising?”

16. Whatever is dependently arisen,

Such a thing is essentially peaceful.

Therefore that which is arising and arising itself
Are themselves peaceful.

The sense of “peaceful” (zhi-ba) here is important. Nagarjuna is
asserting that things are not, from the ultimate point of view, in the
constant flux of arising, remaining, and decaying that characterizes

Examination of the Conditioned

169

them from the conventional point of view. This will be the conclu-
sion of the extended argument that follows and is here merely
announced in advance. But it is important at this stage to be clear
about just what Nagarjuna is asserting for it is indeed a delicate
point: It is true that ordinarily and prereflectively, and sometimes
as the result of bad philosophy, we tend to think of things as
permanent and as having fixed essential natures. But a careful
reflection on the nature of conventional phenomena shows them
on analysis to be impermanent and, hence, to be characterized by
the three properties of arising, stasis, and cessation . 54

But while this takes us to a deeper understanding of the nature
of phenomena, it does not take us all the way. For phenomena,
having no essence, cannot have even these properties essentially.
One way of seeing that is this: If we take the import of the three-
fold nature of phenomena seriously, we see that the phenomena
are themselves literally momentary. And if they are momentary,
then there is literally no time for them to arise, to endure, or to
decay. So from an ultimate point of view, the point of view from
which they have no existence as extended phenomena at all, they
do not possess these three properties. Hence no single real entity is
in flux. In this sense they are peaceful. Nagarjuna points out the
other way of seeing phenomena in the next verse: It does not
follow from the fact that there are no inherently existent arisen
entities that there are non-arisen ones. All phenomena are arisen,
but they arise as empty, and as dependent. Coming to be just is
arising, and all arising is dependent arising.

Nagarjuna now turns his attention to an analysis of the three
characteristics of arising, stasis, and cessation, showing of each in
turn that it cannot be understood as ontologically independent. He
begins with arising:

17. If a nonarisen entity
Anywhere exists,

That entity would have to arise.

But if it were nonexistent, what could arise?

54. Such remarks also make it hard to sustain the nihilistic reading of the text
Wood (1994) offers. For here Nagarjuna is clearly committed to the claim that there
are dependently arisen phenomena.

170

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

We can exclude nonarisen entities from the analysis since the
only sense that we can make of the existence of any phenomenon is
in terms of its having arisen. Arising is hence a ubiquitous charac-
teristic of phenomena. This, of course, is part of what motivates
treating it, as well as stasis and cessation, as inherently existent.

18. If this arising

Gave rise to that which is arising,

By means of what arising
Does that arising arise?

If we take arisen things to require ontological grounds, then
ground them not in other arisen things (since that would gener-
ate an obvious regress within the phenomenal world), but in
dependent arising itself, there remains the infinite regress to
which Nagarjuna alluded earlier. Assuming dependent arising is
to be the ground, then if grounds are needed, it too needs a
ground. Nagarjuna makes this explicit in the following verse:

19. If another arising gives rise to this one,

There would be an infinite regress.

If something nonarisen is arisen,

Then all things could arise in this way.

The last two lines of this verse emphasize that the regress cannot
ever be cut off by positing some nonarisen arising. That would, as
Nagarjuna argued above, patently beg the question.

20. Neither an existent nor a nonexistent
Can be properly said to arise.

As it is taught before with

“For neither an existent nor a nonexistent.”

The reference of the last line is to I: 6:

For neither an existent nor a nonexistent thing
Is a condition appropriate.

If a thing is nonexistent, how could it have a condition?

If a thing is already existent, what would a condition do?

Examination of the Conditioned

171

The implicit argument is, then, that inherently existent phenomena
cannot be said to arise since they would exist eternally and indepen-
dently; nonexistent phenomena cannot be said to arise since if they
did, they would exist. Arising can hence only be a property of
noninherently, but conventionally, existent phenomena. But it
then follows that arising as a property can only be a noninherently
existent, conventional property.

Nagarjuna now turns his attention to the properties of cessa-
tion and endurance. He begins, though, with a final remark on
arising as a transition, concerning the relation between arising
and cessation. This next verse must be read along with VII: 23
and 26. Together they constitute an exhaustive discussion of the
possible inherence of the three properties under discussion in
ceasing entities:

21. The arising of a ceasing thing
Is not tenable.

But to say that it is not ceasing
Is not tenable for anything.

The first alternative Nagarjuna considers is that a ceasing thing
is arising. But if a thing is already ceasing, it is therefore no longer
arising. And since all phenomena are, when their impermanence is
taken into consideration, ceasing, it would follow that nothing can
be said to be arising.

22. A static existent does not endure. 55

A nonstatic existent does not endure.

Stasis does not endure.

What nonarisen can endure?

55. To translate the Tibetan u gnas-pa,” I have used “stasis (static)” as a noun
form, “to endure” as a verb (and sometimes “to abide” to emphasize, where con-
text makes it appropriate, the dynamic character of this process). One should bear
in mind that these diverse English terms do not mark diverse Tibetan (or Sanskrit)
terms in the original. I have tried to be consistent in preserving the connotations
that are important in each context and to render the text in as smooth English as
possible. TTiis precludes the otherwise desirable lexical uniformity one would
achieve by using one of these terms throughout.

172

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Nagarjuna now turns to stasis — the moment between arising
and ceasing. This verse must be read along with VII: 23, 25, and
27, which together provide a complete examination of the status
of stasis. Here he emphasizes that the moment between the
arising and ceasing of a momentary phenomenon — an event —
has no temporal extent. So a thing that we might conventionally
refer to as static literally does not endure with identity through
time. But of course neither does something that is not even
conventionally static. And finally, since as a consequence of
these two premises stasis is not instantiated in any phenomenon,
it itself does not endure. So, Nagarjuna concludes, stasis fails to
exist over time in any sense and so is no candidate for an inher-
ently existent phenomenon.

23. The endurance of a ceasing entity
Is not. tenable.

But to say that it is not ceasing
Is not tenable for anything.

This verse plays a central role in each of two interwoven argu-
ments. In the context of VII: 21 and 26, it provides part of the
exhaustive analysis of the impossibility of arising, abiding and ceas-
ing as instantiated in ceasing (hence in impermanent) phenomena.
In the context of VII: 22, 25, and 27, it provides part of the analysis
of the impossibility of locating endurance in any phenomenon,
hence emphasizing the impermanence of all phenomena. Since to
exist is to exist in time and things that are ceasing are by definition
not in a state of continued existence, ceasing phenomena do not
provide the kind of continuity with numerical identity that endur-
ance demands. And all phenomena are, upon analysis, seen to be
constantly ceasing. So endurance has no possibility of instantia-
tion, and ceasing phenomena cannot have this property as an essen-
tial attribute.

24. Inasmuch as the nature of all things
Is aging and death,

Without aging and death,

What existents can endure?

Examination of the Conditioned

173

Moreover, since all things decay, this analysis is perfectly gen-
eral. Nothing exists in the way that it would have to in order to
have endurance as part of its essence.

25. Stasis cannot endure through itself

Or through another stasis.

Just as arising cannot arise from itself

Or from another arising.

This verse recalls the discussion of VII: 13-19 and has an impor-
tant echo in VII: 32. Nagarjuna argued earlier that we cannot
analyze arising either as sui generis or as dependent upon some
other arising. In the first case, we beg the question; in the second
we invite an infinite regress. He now points out that the same is
true of stasis. We can’t, in order to demonstrate the inherent
existence of stasis, argue that it endures because of itself. If this
kind of reflexive explanation were possible, we would not need to
posit stasis in the first place as an explanation of the continued
existence of empirical phenomena. Each could count as self-
explanatory. But if we say that stasis, like other static things, is
static because of its possessing a distinct stasis, we are off on a
vicious regress.

26. The ceasing of what has ceased does not happen.

What has not yet ceased does not cease.

Nor does that which is ceasing.

What nonarisen can cease?

Nagarjuna thus completes the tripartite argument for the impos-
sibility of the instantiation of arising, abiding, and ceasing begun in
VII: 21 and 23. Cessation, conceived of as an inherently existent,
independent property, needs a substratum. We have seen in the
previous two verses in this argument that neither arising nor static
things can provide this substratum. The only alternative remaining
is the ceasing. But these phenomena, passing out of existence, are
by definition not inherently existent and so fail as candidates. And
again, since all phenomena are ceasing, this means that ceasing as
an independent property has no basis. The argument here is an

174

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

obvious echo of the argument against the inherent existence of
motion. So the conclusion to draw is not that there is no cessation
or that there are no ceasing phenomena. That would be crazy.
Rather, neither cessation nor any impermanent phenomenon can
be identified independently as an entity itself. Their existence is
purely relational. Nagarjuna now turns to the cessation of the
static:

27. The cessation of what is static
Is not tenable.

Nor is the cessation of
Something not static tenable.

T\vo points are being made here: First, if there were intrinsically
real entities that could serve as ontological bases for cessation,
they would have to have either remained stable or not. If the
former, then in virtue of having the nature of stasis, they would be
incapable of cessation. If the latter, since they never really existed,
there is nothing to cease. But there is also a second point being
made that depends upon the conventional reality of cessation.
Since cessation is conventionally real and is incompatible both with
inherently existent stasis and with there being no stasis at all, both
of these alternatives with respect to stasis are eliminated. Cessa-
tion and stasis must be understood relatively and not absolutely.
This point is reiterated in the following verse:

28. Being static does not cease
Through being static itself.

Nor does being static cease

Through another instance of being static.

This verse also echoes VII: 25 and that discussion of the impossi-
bility of arising being either self-explanatory or always explained
by reference to yet another arising. All things, having remained
momentarily in existence, change constantly. This, however, can-
not be explained by reference to the nature of stasis, either reflex-
ively or regressively.

Examination of the Conditioned

175

29. When the arising of any entity
Is not tenable,

Then the cessation of any entity
Is not tenable.

Since nothing arises inherently, nothing ceases inherently. Since
upon careful examination nothing withstands analysis as an inher-
ently existing phenomenon, nothing remains independent of con-
ventional designation to be characterized as arising or ceasing.
This is how it goes from the ultimate standpoint. From that
standpoint — though achieved by noting the universality of arising
and cessation of conventional phenomena — since there are no phe-
nomena, there is no arising and cessation. But by contraposition
we get the corelativity and mutual entailment of arising and ceas-
ing at the conventional level.

30. For an existent thing
Cessation is not tenable.

A single thing being an entity and
A nonentity is not tenable.

This verse and the next reinforce the point about the ultimate
nonexistence of cessation and, by implication, of arising and stasis.
In the preceding, Nagarjuna emphasizes that for an inherently
existent entity to cease to exist would be for it to inherently exist
and not exist. In the subsequent verse, he points out that it makes
no sense for a nonexistent thing to cease to be, just as it makes no
sense to behead someone a second time:

31. Moreover, for a nonentity,

Cessation would be untenable.

Just as a second beheading
Cannot be performed.

32. Cessation does not cease by means of itself.

Nor does it cease by means of another.

Just as arising cannot arise from itself

Or from another arising.

176

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

This verse has an exact parallel in VII: 25. Again, Nagarjuna
recalls the uncomfortable choice between a trivially begged ques-
tion and a vicious regress presented originally in the context of the
discussion of arising and recalled in the discussion of stasis. The
argument applies, mutatis mutandis, to cessation. The conclusion
of this trio of arguments is that we cannot conceive of any of the
three characteristics of dependent arising as self-grounded. All
must be understood dependently and hence as empty.

33. Since arising, ceasing, and abiding

Are not established, there are no compounded things.

If all compounded things are unestablished,

How could the uncompounded be established?

That is, arising, abiding, and ceasing are not entities at all — they
are mere relations. Since these fundamental attributes of depen-
dently arisen phenomena are empty of inherent existence, what
could have inherent existence?

34. Like a dream, like an illusion,

Like a city of Gandharvas,

So have arising, abiding,

And ceasing been explained.

This chapter thus brings the first principal section of Mulamad -
hyamakakarika to a close, drawing together the threads spun in
the earlier chapters to produce a thorough demonstration of the
emptiness of the conventional phenomenal world. Having demon-
strated the emptiness of conditions and their relations to their
effects, change and impermanence, the elements, the aggregates, 56
and characteristics and their bases — in short, of all the fundamen-
tal Buddhist categories of analysis and explanation— Nagarjuna
has now considered the totality they determine— dependent aris-
ing itself and the entire dependently arisen phenomenal world-

56. Sometimes translated as “heaps,” or “collections.” These are the groups of
more basic phenomena into which complex phenomena such as persons are decom-
posed in analysis. The decomposition is in principle bottomless — bundles of bun-
dles of bundles. . . . See Chapters III and IV.

Examination of the Conditioned

177

arguing that dependent arising and what is dependently arisen are
themselves empty of inherent existence.

This is a deep result. It again presages the doctrine of the empti-
ness of emptiness that is made explicit in Chapter XXIV, and it
develops further the theme explored in Chapter I, namely, that
when from the Madhyamika perspective one asserts that a thing is
empty or that it is dependently arisen, one is not contrasting their
status with the status of some other things that are inherently
existent. Nor is one asserting that they are merely dependent on
some more fundamental independent thing. Nor is one asserting
that instead of having an independent essence things have as their
essence dependence or emptiness, either or both of which exist in
some other way. Rather, as far as one analyzes, one finds only
dependence, relativity, and emptiness, and their dependence, rela-
tivity, and emptiness.

But this is not to say either that emptiness, dependent arising or
conventional phenomena are nonexistent — that they are hallucina-
tions. Indeed it is to say the opposite. For the upshot of this critical
analysis is that existence itself must be reconceived. What is said to
be “like a dream, like an illusion” is their existence in the mode in
which they are ordinarily perceived/conceived — as inherently exis-
tent. Inherent existence simply is an incoherent notion . 57 The only
sense that “existence” can be given is a conventional, relative
sense. And in demonstrating that phenomena have exactly that
kind of existence and that dependent arising has exactly that kind
of existence, we recover the existence of phenomenal reality in the
context of emptiness. In the next major section, comprising Chap-
ters VIII through XIII, Nagarjuna addresses the emptiness of the
subject of experience.

57. Compare Wood (1994), who misses the structure of this simile. The respect
in which dependently arisen things are like a dream is this: They exist in one way (as
empty) and appear to exist in another (as inherently existent). Just as dreams and
mirages exist in one way (as illusions) and appear to exist in another (as objects of
perception, or as water). But dreams and mirages are real dreams and mirages. So
this verse should not be interpreted as asserting the complete nonexistence of all
phenomena.

Chapter VIII

Examination of the Agent
and Action

The discussion of external phenomena comprised by the first seven
chapters of the text leads naturally to a discussion of the subject
side of experience, a discussion that occupies the next six chapters.
For it might be granted that the phenomenal external world is
empty, but argued that it depends for its nominal existence on an
inherently existing subject. This idealist tactic, familiar in the West
through Berkeley and Hume (and criticized by Kant in the refuta-
tion of idealism), was adopted by some (the Cittamatra school) in
the history of Buddhist philosophy. We can well imagine an oppo-
nent at this stage in the dialectic conceding to Nagarjuna that
external phenomena lack inherent existence and that the depen-
dent arising that characterizes them lacks inherent existence, but
that their very emptiness entails their nominal character and,
hence, some subject capable of engaging in nominal imputation.
So the subject as agent must exist.

This existent agent
Does not perform an existent action.
Nor does some nonexistent agent
Perform some nonexistent action.

1 .

Examination of the Agent and A ction 1 79

Nagarjuna here announces that, with respect to agency and ac-
tion as well, he will steer a middle course between inherent exis-
tence and complete nonexistence. Neither action nor agent will
come out to be an inherently existing entity. Nor will either end up
being completely nonexistent.

2. An existent entity has no activity.

There would also be action without an agent.

An existent entity has no activity.

There would also be agent without action.

If the agent were inherently existent, then it would be unchang-
ing. Activity is always a kind of change. So if there were action in
the context of an inherently existing agent, the action would be
agentless, which would be absurd. Moreover, the agent would be
inactive, which would also be absurd. This, of course, is just one
more case of Nagarjuna demonstrating the incoherence of a posi-
tion that tries both to posit inherently existent, independent en-
tities and then to get them to interact.

3. If a nonexistent agent

Were to perform a nonexistent action,

Then the action would be without a cause
And the agent would be without a cause.

However, if agent and action are totally nonexistent, there will
be no cause for the action and no justification for calling the agent
an agent.

4. Without a cause, the effect and
Its cause will not occur.

Without this, activity and
Agent and action are not possible.

Agent, the agent’s activity, and the action all depend upon condi-
tions. They are all, therefore, dependently arisen and empty. If, as the
opponent would have it, these are inherently existent, there would be
no action. But if we think of them as dependent, we can make per-
fectly good sense of agent, activity and action in interrelation.

180 THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

5. If activity, etc. , are not possible.

Entities and nonentities are not possible.

If there are neither entities nor nonentities,

Effects cannot arise from them.

If there were no action, then since entities arise from the action
of previous events, there would be no entities and no effects. In
short, without making sense of the possibility of actions and agency
as empty, we can’t account for the existence of any phenomena.

6. If there are no effects, liberation and
Paths to higher realms will not exist.

So all of activity

Would be without purpose.

And all of this has a moral and a soteriological dimension as
well. For if there are no acts and no effects, then the practice of
morality and of the Buddhist path will make no sense. There would
be no point to life if human action is impossible. And again, its
impossibility follows straightforwardly from the reification of ei-
ther agent or action. It is ironic that it is the urge to guarantee
more reality and significance for ourselves than emptiness appears
to allow that leads to a view of life as perfectly impossible and
pointless. That is, though we are led to ascribe inherent, indepen-
dent existence to ourselves and to the world of phenomena we
cherish— in part, in order to assign them the greatest possible
importance — this very importance would be completely under-
mined by such inherent existence and independence. For in that
case, all activity and all consequences of activity would be impossi-
ble. The resultant life would be static, detached, and utterly mean-
ingless. Only in the context of emptiness — what might appear to
be the greatest threat to meaningfulness — can a meaningful life be
understood.

An existent and nonexistent agent
Does not perform an existent and nonexistent action.

Existence and nonexistence cannot pertain to the same thing.
For how could they exist together?

7 .

Examination of the Agent and Action

181

There is no way to escape from this dilemma by trying to have it
both ways: The agent cannot be existent as an actor, but nonexis-
tent as one who undergoes the action. Nor can the action be exis-
tent as an entity, but nonexistent as dependent upon the agent.

8. An actual agent

Does not perform a nonactual action.

Nor by a nonactual one is an actual one performed.

From this, all of those errors would follow.

Nor is it coherent to suppose that the agent is existent, but the
action nonexistent. For then there would be no reason to call the
agent an agent. An agent, after all, is someone who performs an
action. The next two verses put this point and those made in the
opening verses together:

9. An existent agent

Does not perform an action that
Is unreal or both real and unreal
As we have already agreed.

10. A nonexistent agent

Does not perform an action that
Is unreal or both real and unreal
As we have already agreed.

11. An existent and nonexistent agent
does not perform an action that

Is unreal or both real and unreal
As we have agreed.

N£garjuna now moves to assert his positive position on this mat-
ter: Agent and action are interdependent. Neither is logically or
ontologically prior to or independent of the other. What it is to be
an agent is to be performing an action. What it is to be an action is
to be the action of an agent:

12. Action depends upon the agent.

The agent itself depends on action.

One cannot see any way

To establish them differently.

182

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

13. From this elimination of agent and action,

One should elucidate appropriation in the same way.

Through action and agent

All remaining things should be understood.

By “appropriation,” Nagarjuna indicates any cognitive act by
means of which one takes an attribute or entity as one’s own, or as
part of one’s self. That includes the grasping of the aggregates as
the self or of one’s mental states as part of one’s identity or of one’s
possessions as central to one’s being. Appropriation in this broad
sense is, hence, a central object of concern for Buddhist philoso-
phy and psychology, and the relation between the appropriator
and the act of appropriation is an important object of analysis. For
in many ways the self that is constructed through appropriation
presents itself as the subject of appropriation. But it is merely
constructed, and its substantial reality is illusory. Then what in-
deed does the appropriation? And where there is no appropriator,
how does appropriation occur? Nagarjuna here suggests that this
account of the relation between agent and action provides a model
for understanding that relation. That is, this analysis provides a
perfect paradigm for understanding the nature of subjectivity. In
all cases of the relation between an agent of any kind and an act of
any kind, the identity of the two will be seen to be mutually depen-
dent, and each will come out as conventionally real, though not as
inherently existent. We will see this paradigm articulated over the
next five chapters as Nagarjuna argues that we cannot make any
sense of the self as an entity independent of its actions, percep-
tions, and interactions. Nor can we make any sense of the ontology
of these phenomena as independent of the subject. This is a natu-
ral extension of the analysis of emptiness of the external world and
demonstrates Nagarjuna’s determination to treat all phenomena
on the same basis.

Chapter IX

Examination of the Prior Entity

Now one can surely imagine an opponent responding to the argu-
ment of the previous chapter by granting that agency and its
corelative phenomena might be empty, yet still denying that aware-
ness itself — the subjectivity that grounds perception — could be
empty. For, one might argue, the emptiness of all phenomena still
requires that there be a subject for whom they are phenomena.
Nagarjuna articulates this response in the opening verses of this
chapter:

1. Since sight and hearing, etc., and
Feeling, etc., exist,

He who has and uses them
Must exist prior to those, some say.

2. If there were no existent thing.

How could seeing, etc., arise?

It follows from this that prior to this,
there is an existent thing.

That is, without a subject of experience, there can be no experi-
ence and no experienced objects. This argument has familiar in-
stances in Descartes and Kant. But Nagarjuna, siding with Hume
on this issue, begins by asking how this entity could be an object of
knowledge:

184

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

3. How is an entity existing prior to
Seeing, hearing, etc., and

The felt, etc.,

Itself known?

So first, Nagarjuna points out, we have no direct evidence for
the existence of such an entity because evidence of it would require
that it could be an object, but is supposed by its proponent to be
purely subjective. Moreover, Nagarjuna points out, it is supposed
to be independent of and ontologically prior to perception and the
perceived. So:

4. If it can abide
Without the seen, etc.,

Then, without a doubt,

They can abide without it.

That is, independence is a two-way street. If the self is indepen-
dent of its perceiving and perception, then its perceiving and per-
ception are independent of it. Now there is one reading of this
claim on which it is straightforwardly and foolishly fallacious.
Nagarjuna is not arguing that all relations are symmetric. It does
not follow from the fact that this book is on your table that your
table is on the book, and Nagarjuna is not foolish enough to think
that it does. The point is, rather, once again the Humean one that
whatever is indeed logically independent is separable. The oppo-
nent wants to argue that the self is logically independent of its
perceptions and their contents. But if so, then they are separable,
and we can imagine not only a nonperceiving subject, but also
unperceived perceptions. Just as we can imagine a clear table and a
book not on a table. But, Nagarjuna suggests, the idea of unper-
ceived perceptions is both absurd on its face and contradictory to
the opponent’s theoretical framework.

5. Someone is disclosed by something.

Something is disclosed by someone. 58

58. The Sanskrit strongly suggests that the “someone” is to be understood as the
appropriator (in the sense discussed in the previous chapter) and that the “some-
thing” is to be understood as the appropriated object. Later commentators (e.g.,

Examination of the Prior Entity

185

Without something how can someone exist?

Without someone how can something exist?

Nagarjuna here emphasizes the corelativity and interdepen-
dence of subject and object . 59 Subjectivity only emerges when
there is an object of awareness. Pure subjectivity is a contradiction
in adjecto. Moreover, the idea of an object with no subject is
contradictory. The very concept of being an object is that of being
the object of a subject. The affinities to Kant and Schopenhauer
here are quite strong, but should not be pushed too far. Nagarjuna
would clearly have no truck with the substantialist flavor of their
analysis of the subject and object.

6. While prior to all of seeing, etc..

That prior entity doesn’t exist,

Through seeing, etc., by another one,

That other one becomes disclosed.

An opponent might at this point argue that although there is no
continuous prior entity that endures through time and stands be-
hind all perception, we must posit an entity as the basis of each
individual perceptual episode. The self on this model would be a
succession of momentary but inherently existent subjects of mo-
ments of experience. But, Nagarjuna argues in the next verse, the
same argument against positing a single prior entity can be mobi-
lized against each punctal prior entity:

7. If prior to all of seeing, etc.,

No prior entity exists,

Candraklrti and Tsong Khapa see esp. pp. 210-11) generally treat the verse this
way. This would be a reminder that perception is a special case of appropriation. (I
thank the Ven. Gareth Sparham for pointing this out.)

59. But not their identity. Though subject and object as well as internal and
external objects are, for Nagarjuna, all ultimately empty and, in important senses,
interdependent, they are not identical. Physical objects are, as Kant would empha-
size, empirically external to the mind in a way that pains are not; and the conven-
tional perceiver is not one with the perceived. When I see an elephant, it is not,
thereby, the case that I have a trunk!

186

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

How could an entity prior
To each seeing exist?

That is, given that there is no need to identify an independent
self as the basis of all seeing, there is no need to establish one as a
basis for each one independently. The same arguments for the
relativity and relational character of perception apply, mutatis
mutandis, for each perceptual episode. Moreover, even if we did
posit such entities, they would get us nowhere toward positing the
self that the reifier of self really cares about — a continuous self
with which we can really identity and whose fate we can care
about.

8. If the seer itself is the hearer itself,

And the feeler itself, at different times.

Prior to each of these he would have to arise.

But this makes no sense.

Moreover, since this proposal is for a distinct prior entity for
each perceptual episode, we would need distinct subjects for, for
example, hearing and seeing. But as we can do these things at the
same time, it would follow that there are multiple simultaneous
selves. The unity of experience that is the putative explanandum
and motivation for positing this entity in the first place (empha-
sized in the first two lines) would dissolve. Nagarjuna emphasizes
this conclusion at IX: 9:

9. If the seer itself is distinct.

The hearer is distinct and the feeler is distinct,

Then when there is a seer there would also be a hearer,

And there would have to be many selves.

10. Seeing and hearing, etc.,

And feeling, etc.,

And that from which these are arisen:

There is no existent there.

However, one should not be tempted to try to ground percep-
tion, the perceived object, and the perceiver in some more funda-

Examination of the Prior Entity

187

mental ontological ground — some intrinsically identical basis for
their existence. For the need to develop a substantial foundation
for these phenomena should vanish once one sees that not only do
they have no ultimate ontic status, but that they need none. They,
like all phenomena, emerge relationally and dependently.

11. Seeing and hearing, etc.,

And feeling, etc.,

If that to which they belong does not exist,

They themselves do not exist.

Not only has this analysis refuted the inherent existence of the
self as a basis for experience, but in virtue of so doing, it has
refuted the inherent existence of perception and the perceptual
faculties.

12. For whomever prior to,

Simultaneous with, or after seeing, etc., there is nothing,

For such a one, assertions like “it exists” or “it does not
exist”—

Such conceptions will cease.

Nagarjuna here generalizes the point and offers a diagnosis of
the confusion he has worked to resolve: Just as we want to say that
the self as pure subject does not exist — nor do perception or per-
ceptual objects exist as entities — yet want to affirm the conven-
tional reality of perception, perceivers, and perceiveds, in general,
we want to deny the inherent existence of phenomena and affirm
their conventional reality. Just as we want to say that the self
neither exists inherently nor that it is nonexistent inherently, we
want to refrain from attributing inherent existence or inherent
nonexistence to all entities. The apparent paradox involved in say-
ing that things both exist and do not exist in one breath and saying
that they neither exist nor do not exist in another — indeed of
refusing in another sense to permit even these predications in an-
other mood — arises, Nagarjuna points out, from the conceptual
imputation of inherently existent bases for these predications,
which then have to be thought of as having contradictory proper-

188

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

ties. Absent the bases, we can see these assertions merely as useful
analytical tools in various dialectical contexts to help us to see the
ultimately empty and conventionally real nature of phenomena.
And Nagarjuna concludes this chapter by asserting that once one
ceases hypostasizing the subjective self — that entity that might
seem to be, as Descartes notes, the most obviously existent and
most easily known entity of all — the temptation to hypostasize
other entities dissolves.

Chapter X

Examination of Fire and Fuel

This chapter, the only one in this set of chapters ostensibly address-
ing an external phenomenon, is in fact concerned entirely with a
standard counterexample to the kind of arguments Nagarjuna of-
fered in the two previous chapters on subjectivity in action and in
perception. Recall that in those discussions Nagarjuna argues that
subject and object cannot be intrinsically and distinctly identified
as entities because of their mutual dependence. Buddhist schools
asserting substantial identity in the context of dependent co-
origination, such as VaibhaSika and Sautrantika schools, used the
example of fire and fuel to demonstrate the compossibility of sub-
stantial independent identity and dependent origination, as well as
the possibility of the one-way dependence relation that these
schools assert that actions and perception bear to the self. Just as
fire depends on fuel but not vice versa, they would argue, and just
as fire and hiel have distinct identities despite the fact that the
former depends for its existence on the latter, action and percep-
tion can depend on the subject but not vice versa. Despite this
dependence, proponents of this view would argue each relatum
can be individually established as an entity . 60 In this chapter,
Nagarjuna undertakes the task of demonstrating that the example
does not demonstrate these possibilities.

60. See Tsong Khapa’s comments on this verse (p. 219).

190

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

1. If fuel were fire

Then agent and action would be one.

If fire were different from fuel,

Then it could arise without fuel. 61

The opponent does not want to assert the identity of fire and
fuel, first, since it would contradict common sense, but second,
since that, by the intended analogy, would identify agent and ac-
tion, self and perception. On the other hand, if they are identified
as intrinsically different — as having distinct and independent essen-
tial identities — they should be able to arise independently. Fuel
should count as fuel even if there were no fire; fire should be
possible without fuel. This follows from drawing the distinction at
the level of intrinsic identity. Of course, distinguishing them con-
ventionally permits their mutual dependence, but fails to establish
the intrinsic identity intended by the reificationist.

2. It would be forever aflame;

Flames could be ignited without a cause.

Its beginning would be meaningless.

In that case, it would be without any action.

The second and third verses spell out the consequences of attrib-
uting inherent existence to fire: It would be independent of all
conditions, including its fuel; it would burn causelessly, since there
would be no condition under which it would not burn. So all fire
would, in that case, be eternal. Moreover, it would not consume
anything, having no connection to the presence or absence of fuel.
Moreover, Nagarjuna asserts in the final two lines of X: 3, the
activity of starting a fire would be nonsensical:

3. Since it would not depend on another

Ignition would be without a cause.

If it were eternally in flames,

Starting it would be meaningless.

61. The intended sense of “fuel” here is material that is actually burning — not,
for instance, firewood neatly stacked outside.

Examination of Fire and Fuel

191

4. So, if one thinks that

That which is burning is the fuel.

If it is just this,

How is this fuel being burned?

Nagarjuna now sets up a destructive dilemma: Either the process
of burning is identical to the fuel or different. In X: 4, he considers
the possibility that they are identical. If so, he suggests, we have a
problem in explaining how the fuel is consumed. The ordinary expla-
nation of that is the presence of fire. But by identifying the burning
process with the fuel, we have left the fire out of the picture. This
analysis hence provides no explanation of combustion. After all,
fuel by itself does not burn. It must be ignited, that is, fire must be
introduced. If, as Nagarjuna argues in X: 5, they are completely
different, there won’t be any fire at all. For then the burning would
be dissociated from and independent of the fuel, and the unburned
fuel would not be consumed by the burning. We could make no
sense of the transition from unburned to burned fuel. The general
moral is that we cannot make sense of interactive processes such as
combustion without attending to the mutual dependence of the
interacting phenomena that constitute those processes:

5. If they are different, and if one not yet connected isn’t

connected,

The not yet burned will not be burned.

They will not cease. If they do not cease

Then it will persist with its own characteristic.

6. Just as a man and a woman

Connect to one another as man and woman,

So if fire were different from fuel,

Fire and fuel would have to be fit for connection.

Here the opponent suggests that just as males and females are
suited to connect in special ways in virtue of their particular ana-
tomical structures, despite existing independently of one another,
fire and fuel may be similarly suited to some special kind of connec-
tion. In that case, we would have the bizarre picture of fire being
independent of fuel, yet peculiarly suited to coming together with

192

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

it, and vice versa . 62 Moreover, since on this model fire and fuel are
distinct from one another in nature, yet interactive (they “pre-
clude” each other in the sense that causes and effects preclude one
another — that is, in virtue of being connected yet incapable of
simultaneous copresence), there must still be some account of how
they connect, an account by no means easy to envisage:

7. And, if fire and fuel
Preclude each other

Then fire being different from fuel,

It must still be asserted that they connect.

Fire and fuel hence appear to be mutually dependent. Indeed
the central point of Nagarjuna’s argument is that they are. But
here the question arises: Don’t they then have either to depend
upon some third more fundamental thing or to be asymmetrically
dependent, one of them established independently of the other?

8. If fire depends on fuel,

And fuel depends on fire,

On what are fire and fuel established as dependent?

Which one is established first?

If either is established as an entity first, without any reliance on
the existence or nature of the other, that member of the pair would
have a claim to being the basis in an asymmetrical dependency
relation, and the opponent would have the counterexample neces-
sary to refute the analysis in Chapters VIII and IX. The most
obvious form that such an asymmetric dependence could take
would involve the dependence of fire on fuel. Nagarjuna argues
that this is impossible to maintain:

9. If lire depends on fuel,

It would be the establishment of an established fire.

And the fuel could be fuel
Without any fire.

62. See also Kalupahana (1986), p. 199.

Examination of Fire and Fuel

193

There are two arguments here. In the first two lines, Nagarjuna
argues that if fire were to depend upon fuel, fire would be doubly
established. The point is that in order for the fuel to count as fuel,
the existence of the fire must have already been established; in-
deed, the fuel depends upon the fire for its character as fuel. So to
say then that the fire is dependent upon the fuel would be to argue
that something whose existence is already presupposed if the fuel is
to exist depends for its existence on that fuel. Note that this is only
problematic for the opponent. That is, for one who accepts, as
Nagarjuna does, the mutual interdependence of phenomena, it is
in fact true that fire depends upon fuel and that fuel depends upon
fire. But the opponent at this stage in the argument argues that fire
exists only dependently, but dependently on independent fuel. So
Nagarjuna only needs to show that position to be untenable. And
the problem for the opponent is simply that the fuel he wants to
exist independently can only do so in the presence of fire, which
itself is merely dependent.

Second, Nagarjuna argues, this would entail the absurd indepen-
dent establishment of fuel as fuel. For fuel to be established inde-
pendently as fuel in the absence of fire would be for there to be
some characteristic of fuel that could be specified independently of
fire that makes it fuel. But there is none. What makes fuel fuel is
that it is combustible.

10. If that on which an entity depends
Is established on the basis

Of the entity depending on it.

What is established in dependence on what?

So in order to establish the existence of fuel as fuel, we must
establish the existence of fire. In order for something to be fire, it
must be consuming fuel. Neither depends asymmetrically on the
other.

11. What entity is established through dependence?

If it is not established, then how could it depend?

However, if it is established merely through dependence,

That dependence makes no sense.

194

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Now Nagarjuna draws the general ontological moral from this
discussion of the putative counterexample. If an entity is inher-
ently existent, it must be independently established as an entity
and with its own nature. So no entity could be established as inher-
ently existent through dependence on any other entity. Only inher-
ently existent entities could be independent. To establish some-
thing as inherently existent through its dependence on something
else is incoherent. So since entities can be established neither
through independence nor through dependence, there is no way to
establish anything as an entity in its own right.

12. Fire is not dependent upon fuel.

Fire is not independent of fuel.

Fuel is not dependent upon fire.

Fuel is not independent of fire.

That is, neither fuel nor fire can be established as independent
bases of predication separate from one another that then stand in
accidental relations to one another. There are not two entities,
fire and fuel, which then are related either by dependence or
interdependence.

13. Fire does not come from something else,

Nor is fire in fuel itself.

Moreover, fire and the rest are just like
The moved, the not- moved, and the goer.

Though, as verse 12 grants, fire exists only in relation to fuel, it
would not be correct to assert that fuel as an independent entity
somehow produces fire. The analysis and the conclusion are
strictly analogous to that regarding motion and the mover. We
neither can say that motion is the same as the mover nor that they
are different entities. We cannot say that motion is present in the
unmoved, the moving, or the yet-to-move. Similarly we cannot say
that fire is the same as the fuel nor that it is different. Nor can we
say that it is present in the unburned, the burning, or the yet-to-be-
burned fuel. The next verse emphasizes this point:

Examination of Fire and Fuel

195

14. Fuel is not fire.

Fire does not arise from anything different from fuel.

Fire does not possess fuel.

Fuel is not in fire, nor vice versa.

15. Through discussion of fire and fuel,

The self and the aggregates, the pot and cloth

All together.

Without remainder have been explained.

The fire and fuel example is used as an analogy for a number of
different cases of relations between bases and their attributes, in-
cluding the relation between the putative self and its aggregates —
that is, the components of the personality. But there are other
stock examples — the relation between the pot and its properties
and between the cloth and its thread — that are used to try to
defend these asymmetrical dependence relations between inher-
ently existent bases and the properties they support. Nagarjuna is
simply asserting the complete generality of this argument: It ap-
plies, mutatis mutandis, to all of these cases.

16. I do not think that

Those who teach that the self

Is the same as or different from the entities

Understand the meaning of the doctrine.

This colophon verse reminds us that when existence is under-
stood in terms of emptiness and when entities are regarded as
purely relational in character, identity and difference can only be
understood conventionally. This applies not only with respect to
apparently distinct entities, but also to the relation between parts
and wholes, things and their attributes, events and their causes,
and as Nagarjuna emphasizes here, self and the objects of aware-
ness. Strict identity and difference as determined by reference to
phenomena themselves are only conceivable from the incoherent
standpoint of inherent existence.

Chapter XI

Examination of the Initial and
Final Limits

But suppose that one could see that the self, considered as agent or
as subject, lacks inherent existence, and still one argued that none-
theless it must do so in virtue of its impermanence and being subject
to change. Then, one might argue, birth, aging, and death must be
real as the conditions of the self’s unreality. This is the position with
which Nagarjuna concerns himself in this chapter. But he is also
concerned with the generalization of this question to the birth, ag-
ing, and death of all of cyclic existence . 63 And it is this more general
problem with which he actually opens the chapter, developing the
account of individual impermanence as a special case ; 64

63. In Buddhist philosophy, the entire phenomenal world is referred to as cyclic
existence (' khor-ba , Skt: samsdra). This term indicates not only the endless cycle of
birth and death posited by the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth, but also the universally
cyclic character of phenomena: Perception and action form a cycle; motivation and
action form a cycle; the seasons are cyclic; chains of interdependence of phenomena
are cyclic; interpersonal relations are cyclic; craving and acquisition are cyclic. It is
this metaphor, suggesting that all of unenlightened existence amounts to going
around in circles despite the illusion of progress, that most poignantly captures the
sense in which all of human existence is suffering. See Sogyal Rinpoche 1992, pp.
18-22, for an excellent discussion.

64. This is, as the Ven. Sherab Gyatso pointed out in conversation, not the only
possible reading of the import of this chapter. It could perfectly well be read simply as

Examination of the Initial and Final Limits

197

1. When asked about the beginning,

The Great Sage said that nothing is known of it. 65
Cyclic existence is without end and beginning.

So there is no beginning or end.

The question about the existence and nature of the origin of the
world is one of the questions that Sakyamuni Buddha declared to be
unanswerable. Nagarjuna here interprets that to mean that there is
nothing coherent that can be said about the origin of the world.
Given the striking similarity between the questions that the Buddha
declared unanswerable and those that Kant argues to be unanswer-
able by reason in the Antinomies of Pure Reason, there is much to
be said for this diagnosis . 66 So Nagarjuna here claims that we cannot

a discussion of the problem of the beginning of personal existence and as an argument
to the effect that cyclic existence and the predicament of suffering is beginningless, or
at least that it is pointless or impossible to discuss and ponder its beginning. On the
other hand, given the parallels between the analysis here and that in Chapter XXVII,
where the questions concerning the finitude or infinitude of personal existence and of
the world’s existence are explicitly juxtaposed and receive identical treatment, there
is good reason to see this chapter as implicitly addressing both as well.

65. thub-pa chen-pos min zhes gsungs. In an alternative Tibetan translation, this
reads thub-pa chen-pos mi gsungs z/tw,i.e., — “The Great Sage did not answer.” See
the Potthapada Sutra 25:

Tell me, Is the world eternal? Is only this true and the opposite false?
Pottbap&da, I have not declared that the world is eternal and that the opposite
view is false. Well, Lord, is the world not eternal? I have not declared that the
world is not eternal. . . . Well, Lord, is the world infinite, . . . not infinite . . . ?
I have not declared that the world is not infinite and that the opposite view is
false. (Walsh, trans., 1987, p. 164)

There are three popular readings of the Buddha’s refusal to answer the “unanswer-
able questions.” On one reading this was an example of his great skill in teaching; any
answer he would have given would have been misconstrued and would have had
adverse consequences for the student. On another reading, by refusing to answer, the
Buddha was indicating that asking these questions does not conduce to successful
practice of the Buddhist path and that one should focus one’s mind on more
soteriologically efficacious issues. On a third reading — the one adopted here — these
questions are in fact metaphysically misguided. They ail involve incoherent essen-
tialist presuppositions that, when rejected, render the questions meaningless.

66. The Buddha pronounced unanswerable questions regarding whether the
world has an origin or an end in time or space, whether the individual continues to
exist after entering nirvana, whether there is some entity that transmigrates, and
whether there is temporal beginning or end to the continuum of consciousness. Kant

198

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

make sense of the beginning or end of all of cyclic existence —
beginnings and ends are beginnings and ends of actual, convention-
ally designated and delimited processes within cyclic existence.

2. Where there is no beginning or end,

How could there be a middle?

It follows that thinking about this in terms of
Prior, posterior, and simultaneous is not appropriate.

The concept of a middle, Nagarjuna argues, is bound up with
those of beginnings and ends. We can say that we and all phenom-
ena are within cyclic existence, but to posit determinate absolute
spatiotemporal locations is senseless.

3. If birth came first,

And then old age and death,

pronounces unanswerable questions regarding the substantiality, simplicity, personal
identity, and primacy of the self, as well as questions regarding the finiteness or
infinitude of the world in space and time, the ultimate divisibility of the world, the
freedom of the will, and the existence of God. Murti (1985) makes a bit too much of
this parallel, however, arguing that Nagarjuna follows Kant in asserting that

the aim in cosmological speculation (Rational Cosmology) is to reach the uncon-
ditioned ground of empirical objects by means of a regressive claim of reasoning
(i.e. arguing from effect to cause) stretched illegitimately, as Kant points out,
beyond the possibility of experience. ...

The question regarding the Tathagata is in fact about the ultimate ground of
both the soul and objects — about the unconditioned in general. The Tathagata as
the Perfect Man is the ultimate essence of the universe. His position is analogous
to that of God of Rational Theology. . . .

The formulation of the problems in the thesis-antithesis form is itself evi-
dence of the conflict in Reason, that the conflict is not on the empirical level and
so not capable of being settled by appeal to facts is realized by the Buddha when
he declares them unsoluble . . (pp. xiii-xv).

While Nagarjuna shares with Kant a critical approach to philosophy — each seeks
to limn the bounds of thought — and while Kant posits an unconditioned realm that
is the unknowable but necessary ground of the empirical world, Nagarjuna eschews
just such a ground. His treatment of the unanswerable questions, then, differs from
Kant’s, despite the many genuine parallels, in that while for Kant the antinomies
represent the application of concepts beyond their range, for Nagarjuna they repre-
sent sheer nonsense: These antinomies are not for him insoluble problems, but
rather pairs of apparently coherent but in fact nonsensical verbal formulations.

Examination of the Initial and Final Limits 199

Then birth would be ageless and deathless,

And a deathless one would be born.

Birth, old age, and death here are to be understood in an abso-
lute sense. Of course, conventionally, the birth of a particular
human being comes before her/his aging, which precedes her/his
death. But that should not lead us to think of that birth as the
origin of an entity, that aging as the midpoint in the life of that
entity, or that death as the end of that entity. If one adopts a
doctrine of rebirth, as does Nagarjuna and as do all of his interlocu-
tors, the point can be made quite straightforwardly: For any sen-
tient continuum, every birth is preceded by an aging and a death,
and so forth.

But even setting aside the particular doctrine of rebirth, we can
elucidate this insight with equal force: To see particular entities as
having determinate, nonconventional beginnings of existence and
determinate, nonconventional termini and, hence, that there are
distinct times at which there is a clear fact of the matter about
whether or not they exist, independent of conventions for their
individuation, is to see those entities as having necessary and suffi-
cient characteristics for their identity, that is, as having essences.
But the central thesis Nagarjuna is defending is that this very con-
ception of what it is to exist is incoherent — that things are empty of
such essences and that the boundaries of objects are conventional
and indeterminate. There is no fixed boundary between the exis-
tence of a seed, the tree to which it gives rise, a piece of wood from
that tree, and a table fashioned therefrom or between the existence
of an intact table, a broken table, wooden table parts, ashes, earth,
the nutrients for a seed, that seed, the sapling to which it gives rise,
and another tree.

Once we see the world from the standpoint of emptiness of
inherent existence, the history of any conventionally designated
entity is but an arbitrary stage carved out of a vast continuum of
interdependent phenomena . 67 The arising of any phenomenon, hu-

67. One must not, however, take this to mean that for Nagarjuna there is an
inherently existent continuum out of which we carve the merely conventional.
Rather just as any totality is dependent upon its parts, the totality of empirical

200

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

man, nonhumart sentient being, or inanimate object is the conse-
quence of the disintegration of others. That disintegration suc-
ceeds their arising and aging. Once we give up the intrinsic identity
of entities, the constant cycle of death, birth, aging, and rebirth of
entities is unavoidable.

4. If birth were to come after,

And old age and death first,

How could there be a causeless aging and death
Of one not born?

But birth has to precede death as well, on pain of the absurdity
of something that is unborn dying. And, as Nagarjuna points out in
the next verse, we must think conventionally of these things in
sequence because any conventionally designated object undergoes
them in order:

5. Birth and age and death
Cannot occur at one time.

Then what is being born would be dying
And both would occur without cause.

6. When the series of the prior, simultaneous, and posterior
Is not possible,

Why are you led to posit
This birth, aging, and death?

The birth, aging, and death that the opponent has in mind can be
represented at two levels: At the most general level, it is the birth,
aging, and death of cyclic existence, the examination of which
frames this discussion. At that level, Nagarjuna is pointing out that

reality depends upon its empty components and, so, is itself empty. Ontology
presupposes conventional categories. Nor is this to say that the conventions we
adopt are from our perspective arbitrary. They reflect our needs, our biological,
psychological, perceptual, and social characteristics, as well as our languages and
customs. Given these constraints and conventions, there are indeed facts of the
matter regarding empirical claims and regarding the meanings of words. But there
is no transcendent standpoint, Nagarjuna would insist, from which these conven-
tions and constraints can be seen as justified.

Examination of the Initial and Final Limits

201

these conceptions, having legitimate employment only within the
empirical realm, are nonsense. But the opponent could also be
interpreted as positing birth, aging, and death as determinate, intrin-
sically identifiable moments in the evolution of empirical phenom-
ena or, specifically, of sentient beings. Nagarjuna rejects that as
well, arguing that moments intrinsically prior to, simultaneous with,
or posterior to the existence of entities cannot be identified, given
the lack of intrinsic identity of the entities themselves. So long as
one in conceiving of phenomena thinks of them as temporally deter-
minate and bounded, and thinks of the identity of things as intrinsic
to them, one will have to identify their beginnings, middles, and
ends. But this leads to paradox, given the indeterminateness, inter-
dependence, and interpenetration of things. Nagarjuna hence ad-
vises the rejection of this ontology:

7. Not only is cyclic existence itself without beginning,

No existent has a beginning:

Neither cause and effect;

Nor character and characterized . . .

The alternative, both with respect to cyclic existence as a whole
and with respect to individual entities, is to reject the ontology of
entities and characteristics altogether, along with the boundaries
and determinate relations that ontology requires:

8. Nor feeling and the feeler;

Whatever there is;

All entities

Are without beginning.

Chapter XII

Examination of Suffering

The first of the Four Noble Truths is that “all this is suffering.” So
one can imagine an interlocutor granting all that has gone before,
but in defense of Buddhist orthodoxy, insisting that suffering is
inherently existent. After all, the Four Noble Truths are, from a
Buddhist perspective, truths. Nagarjuna, of course, is a Buddhist
and accepts the Four Noble Truths. (In fact, the principal chapter
of this work. Chapter XXIV, is devoted to an exposition of the
Four Noble Truths from the standpoint of emptiness and to the
argument that only on Nagarjuna’s analysis can these truths be
maintained at all.) So he must, without denying the reality of
suffering, explain its emptiness.

1. Some say suffering is self-produced,

Or produced from another or from both.

Or that it arises without a cause.

It is not the kind of thing to be produced.

These are the four possibilities with regard to inherently existent
suffering. The echo of I: 1 is obvious, and the argument here will
depend heavily upon the analysis of dependent arising developed
in that chapter and in Chapter VII.

2. If suffering came from itself.

Then it would not arise dependently.

Examination of Suffering

203

For those aggregates

Arise in dependence on these aggregates.

Self-arising suffering would indeed be a candidate for inherent
existence. But for the proponent of a Buddhist analysis of suffer-
ing, that is little help since suffering on a Buddhist analysis is the
consequence of delusion, attachment, craving, action, and so
forth. So such an analysis is not open to anyone wanting to defend
the inherent existence of the suffering explored in the Four Noble
Truths.

3. If those were different from these,

Or if these were different from those.

Suffering could arise from another.

These would arise from those others.

The next alternative — that suffering arises from another —
requires that there be essential difference. For since suffering does
arise from previous conditions, if there is genuine otherness, that
would characterize the relation between suffering and its grounds.

4. If suffering were caused by a person himself,

Then who is that person —

By whom suffering is caused —

Who exists distinct from suffering?

But who is that other? It must be the sufferer himself at another
stage, or another individual altogether. If it is the person himself,
then as the cause of suffering, he must be distinct from suffering.
This poses two problems: First, as per the analysis of motion,
desire, and agency in Chapters II, VI, and VIII above, we cannot
conceive of the sufferer as inherently different from the suffering
he experiences. For part of his identity is constituted by that very
suffering, and that suffering is his suffering. But second, given the
framework of the first of the Four Noble Truths, a Buddhist phi-
losopher such as Nagarjuna would share with any Buddhist inter-
locutor the assumption that in samsara sentient beings not only
suffer, but are literally constituted of suffering — that every aggre-
gate of a sentient being’s existence is a cause, an effect, and a basis

204

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

of misery. So on either score, to distinguish sufferer from suffering
for the purpose of such an analysis would be impossible.

5. If suffering comes from another person,

Then who is that person —

When suffering is given by another—

Who exists distinct from suffering?

Another alternative is that the suffering is caused not by earlier
stages of one’s own life, but by another individual. That other indi-
vidual of course could be someone else entirely, in the ordinary
sense, or it could be an earlier moment of what is ordinarily re-
garded as oneself, but which is for the purposes of this analysis
regarded as substantially other. That is, taken in this way, Nagar-
juna can be seen to be arguing on each side of a dilemma with regard
to the identity of persons across time. But if this were so, it would
have to be the case that the person in whom suffering was caused by
that other could be identified and that that person could be distin-
guished from her suffering. But then the same problems developed
above apply. Nagarjuna emphasizes this in XII: 6: 68

6. If another person causes suffering,

Who is that other one

Who bestowed that suffering,

Distinct from suffering?

7. When self-caused is not established,

How could suffering be caused by another?

Whoever caused the suffering of another
Must have caused his own suffering.

But the suffering of that other person must either be caused by
someone else or be self-caused. The former alternative leads to a
regress: The whole point from the standpoint of the opponent who
is the target of this argument is to find the independent explana-

68. In this case, there is a second difficulty as well: For one person to cause
suffering for another, that first must already be suffering. For to cause suffering is a
very serious wrong, which could only be done by someone who him/herself is
suffering. So there is a possible regress.

Examination of Suffering 205

tory ground for suffering. The second alternative leads back to the
problem scouted in the opening verses: Self-caused suffering is
both inconceivable within a general Buddhist soteriological frame-
work and runs afoul of the arguments against self-causation gener-
ally. Finally, it is rather embarrassingly ad hoc. Nagarjuna sums
this up in the next verse:

8. No suffering is self-caused.

Nothing causes itself.

If another is not self-made.

How could suffering be caused by another?

But, as Nagarjuna points out in XII: 9, it can’t be caused by both
since we have seen that neither can be causally relevant at all to
inherently existent suffering of a kind relevant to Buddhist doc-
trine. And it is absurd to suppose that it is uncaused:

9. If suffering were caused by each,

Suffering could be caused by both.

Not caused by self or by other,

How could suffering be uncaused?

10. Not only does suffering not exist
In any of the fourfold ways:

No external entity exists
In any of the fourfold ways.

The fourfold analysis is, of course, that in terms of the
tetralemma of causation. And Nagarjuna is simply emphasizing
that this refutation of the existence of inherently existing suffering
is perfectly general. No entity can arise from itself, from another,
from both, or from a noncause. This was the burden of the first
chapter. We must, of course, recall that this is not a refutation of
the existence of the suffering we all experience and wish to avoid.
Rather it is a demonstration of its emptiness of inherent existence.
For just as the analysis in Chapter I has provided the key to dismiss-
ing the inherent existence of suffering, the positive side of that
same analysis can be used to recover its conventional existence. If
by suffering we mean something dependently arisen, imperma-

206

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

nent, and conventional, existing only as imputed and only in rela-
tion to its empty subjects, there is plenty of suffering to go around.

But moreover, not only is the existence of suffering rendered
comprehensible on this analysis, but so is the possibility of the
alleviation of suffering. For if the proponent of the inherent exis-
tence of suffering were correct, while it might seem that suffering
would then have a more solid status than that vouchsafed it by
Nagarjuna’s analysis in terms of emptiness, that very substantial
existence and hence independence of other conditions would make
its alleviation impossible. For if it exists independently, then there
are no conditions in the absence of which it fails to exist. So
Nagarjuna’s analysis not only makes good sense of the first truth —
that of suffering — and by implication of the second — that of the
cause of suffering — but also opens the door for an analysis of the
third and fourth truths — those of cessation and of the means to
cessation.

Chapter XIII

Examination of Compounded
Phenomena

In this chapter, Nagarjuna begins to develop the idea of emptiness
more explicitly. Up to this point, he has been arguing that phenom-
ena are empty, but has not been characterizing emptiness itself, or
its relation to entitihood or to conventional reality, except by exam-
ple and by implication. At this point, through a general discussion
of all compounded phenomena — that is, all phenomena consti-
tuted of parts or brought into being dependent upon causes — he
argues explicitly both that emptiness is the lack of essence and that
emptiness itself is wholly negative in character. It is not an essence
that things have instead of whatever essence naive common sense
or sophisticated reification might have thought they had — rather,
it is the total lack of essence or inherent existence. This is, hence,
an anticipation of the explicit discussions of the emptiness of empti-
ness to follow.

1. The Victorious Conqueror has said that whatever

Is deceptive is false.

Compounded phenomena 69 are all deceptive.

Therefore they are all false.

69. Kalupahana (1986) translates this term (Skt: samskara, Tib: *du byed) as
“dispositions.” That is often correct. But it can also refer to compounded phenom-

208

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

This is an important verse for any understanding of the relation of
the two truths — the conventional and the ultimate — to one another.
That relation is vexed because the conventional truth is sometimes
referred to as a truth and sometimes as wholly false. Conventional
phenomena are sometimes referred to as empirically real and not
imaginary and sometimes as wholly imaginary . 70 So it is important to
see that the sense of “falsehood” in play when the conventional is
characterized as false is “deceptive.” That is, insofar as conven-
tional phenomena present themselves as more than conventional —
as inherently existent— they deceive us. We take them to be what
they are not — to be intrinsically identified, inherently existent en-
tities. In that sense, they are false. But to the extent that we under-
stand them as dependently arisen, empty, interdependent phenom-
ena, they constitute a conventional truth. Yet one must bear in mind
that, according to Nagarjuna, perception untutored by Madhya-
mika philosophy and rigorous practice delivers objects to conscious-
ness as inherently existent. In this sense, the things that we see are
wholly false. For most of us, the best that we can do is reason our
way into knowing, but not seeing, their true nature. The goal of
meditation on emptiness is to bring this knowledge into perceptual
experience and, hence, to see things as they are.

2. If whatever is deceptive is false,

What deceives?

The Victorious Conqueror 71 has said about this
That emptiness is completely true.

ena in general. Given the structure of the argument in this chapter, I (as do Tsong
Khapa and his followers) prefer this reading. Kalupahana (p. 48) argues that it
makes sense to follow a chapter on suffering with one on dispositions, inasmuch as
the latter plausibly give rise to the former. He is right. But it also makes sense to
follow a chapter on suffering with one on compounded phenomena since positing
them as self-existent is what gives rise to suffering. Dispositions and compounded
phenomena are — as the homonymy in question demonstrates — closely linked in
Buddhist metaphysics. Dispositions are themselves compounded phenomena; but
more importantly, they are what lead us to the conceptual compounding that gives
phenomena their status as conventional entities.

70. This, of course, is partially responsible for the kind of nihilistic misreading
of the text one sees, e.g., in Wood (1994).

71 . An epithet of the Buddha. (The translation reflects the sense of the Tibetan.
The Sanskrit would read “Blessed One.”)

Examination of Compounded Phenomena 209

The opponent then asks what we are deceived about. Here is
what motivates the question: If there are no real tables, for in-
stance, then when I believe that there is a table in front of me and
am therefore deceived, what is deceiving me? We don’t want to say
that a nonexistent phenomenon is pretending to be existent since it
would have to exist in order to pretend. Nagarjuna replies that
what actually exists is an empty table. (That is not to say, however,
that that empty table is inherently existent — only that the correct
way to characterize the entity that exists conventionally is as an
“empty table.”) That empty table is misperceived by an ordinary
mind as a truly existent table. To the extent that it appears as
empty, it appears as it truly is. In the first two lines of the next
verse, Nagarjuna notes that it is the absence of essence that per-
mits change:

3. All things lack entity (hood),

Since change is perceived.

There is nothing without entity
Because all things have emptiness.

It is emptiness that makes change possible. If things had es-
sences, they would be incapable of real change. But since they are
seen to change, Nagarjuna argues, they must be empty of essence.
The opponent, though, rejoins: Since according to Nagarjuna all
things are empty and since this is their ultimate nature, all things in
fact do have a kind of entitihood, namely, existence as empty phe-
nomena. Nagarjuna is here anticipating the charge that he has
rejected other essences only to posit emptiness as an essence, sub-
ject to all of the problems he has already adumbrated for essen-
tialist metaphysics.

The opponent then asks (XIII: 4), “If everything lacks being, and
is therefore empty, what could change?” Change would seem to
have to be change of something, and the doctrine of emptiness
seems to rob us of those somethings. Nagarjuna, hence, presents
himself, in the voice of the opponent, with a dilemma: He seems to
have propounded, his protestations to the contrary notwithstand-
ing, a theory of the essence of all phenomena. That theory, accord-
ing to this hypothetical objection, is that emptiness just is the es-

210

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

sence of all phenomena. He could deny having propounded such a
theory, of course. But the consequence of such a denial, the oppo-
nent charges, would be no better. For then, the very basis of the
argument here offered for emptiness — the reality of change —
would have to be rejected. This is because without real entities there
would no longer be a possible subject of change. Nagarjuna replies
in the third and fourth lines of XIII: 4 that the opponent has things
backward: If there was entitihood — if things were nonempty —
change would be impossible. It is emptiness itself that makes change
comprehensible:

4. If there is no entity (hood).

What changes?

If there were entity.

How could it be correct that something changes?

Now Nagarjuna begins a brief explanation of how to understand
change in the context of emptiness and of why entitihood would
preclude change. This discussion is certainly grounded in the analy-
sis in Chapter II, but is more explicitly tied to the doctrine of
emptiness at this point in the text:

5. A thing itself does not change.

Something different does not change.

Because a young man doesn’t grow old,

And because and an old man doesn’t grow old either.

When we imagine change, we imagine one thing retaining its
identity, but changing its properties. But if identity is understood
strictly, it is only possible as an internal relation that a thing bears
to itself. To the extent that a thing changes, it becomes, strictly
speaking, a different thing. But the relation between two things is
not the change of a thing — it is simply the difference between two
nonchanging entities. A young man does not grow old. When he is
old he is no longer a young man. The relation between the young
man and the old man is simply the difference of two things. But an
old man doesn’t grow old either. He is already old. So if change

Examination of Compounded Phenomena 211

and things that change are thought of nonrelational^, we can make
no sense of change at all.

6. If a thing itself changed,

Milk itself would be curd.

Or curd would have come to be
An entity different from milk.

If we think of identity persisting through change, there is a single
thing that changes as conventionally, milk becomes curd. Since
that thing is identical to milk and to curd, by transitivity we would
have to say that curd and milk are identical. But no one would
want to put curd in his/her tea! The only way to avoid this result
while retaining the idea that milk and curd are entities would be to
consider them to be wholly different entities. In that case, there is
still no change in an entity — only the difference between two unre-
lated phenomena. 72

7. If there were even a trifle nonempty,

Emptiness itself would be but a trifle.

But not even a trifle is nonempty.

How could emptiness be an entity?

Verses 7 and 8 are critical for any understanding of the subtle
doctrine Nagarjuna is developing of the emptiness of emptiness. In
XIII: 7, Nagarjuna is emphasizing that emptiness is not one of the
many properties that a thing might or might not have. It is not that
some things are empty and some are nonempty, or that all things
happen to be empty although they might have been otherwise.
Emptiness is important because it is the only way that things can
exist. Moreover, emptiness is not an entity. It is not a distinct
phenomenon to which other phenomena are related. It is exactly

72. My reading of these last two verses appears to conflict with that of Inada
(1970), who reads Nagarjuna as here denying that there is change. Rather, I take it,
Nagarjuna denies that there is any inherently existent change or any substantial
entity that could be the subject of change, in virtue of the conventional reality of
change and the changed.

212 THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

the emptiness of all phenomena. 73 The conventional character of
conventional entities and their emptiness are one and the same.

8. The victorious ones have said

That emptiness is the relinquishing of all views.

For whomever emptiness is a view,

That one will accomplish nothing.

The sense of “view” (Tib: Ita-ba, Skt: dm) at work in verse 8 is
crucial. By a view, Nagarjuna here means a theory on the same
level of discourse at which reificationist-nihilist debates proceed.
A view in this sense is a view about what does or does not exist
when existence is taken to mean inherent existence, or about the
nature of phenomena, presupposing that the idea of a nature is
coherent. So both the theory that compounded phenomena exist in
virtue of having natures and identities and the theory that since
they don’t have such natures and identities they don’t exist at all
are views in this sense. Both presuppose that things exist at all if
and only if they do so inherently. But the analysis in terms of
emptiness is not a view at all in this sense. For the claim is not that
things exist in virtue of having the property of emptiness as an
essence. Rather it is the claim that they are empty because they
have no essence.

It is also very important to see that this understanding of what a
view is is closely bound up with Nagarjuna s account of assertion
and of the role of language in Madhyamika dialectic. For Nagar-
juna, assertion in the literal sense is always the ascription of a
property to an entity. As long as we are talking from the conven-
tional standpoint, there is no problem here. There are plenty of
conventional entities and conventional properties to go around
and, so, lots of available conventionally true assertions. That is the
basis of conventional truth. It is also important to note here that

73. So here I agree with Wood (1994, p. 174) when he concludes that the
purport of this verse is that emptiness is not an entity. But unlike Wood, I do not
think that entails a nihilism with respect to emptiness. It remains a characteristic of
all phenomena (including itself) and, hence, like them, is conventionally real. See
also Siderits (1989).

Examination of Compounded Phenomena

213

corresponding to these conventional assertions are real proposi-
tions that make them true or false — entities with or without the
ascribed properties. Again, as long as we remain and are aware
that we remain within the framework of conventional designation
and conventional assertion, this poses no problems.

But, when we start to do metaphysics, it is easy to slip into
nonsense: For now, when we want to characterize the essence of a
thing, we take ourselves to be positing a non-conventional thing
and ascribing to it an essential property. And there not only are no
such things, but there are not even possibly such things. There is
no ultimate way the world is that we are characterizing, truly or
falsely.

The danger to which Nagarjuna is here adverting with respect to
Madhyamika philosophy (of treating Madhyamika as a view) is
then connected to assertion in the following way: If one were to
think that in asserting that things are empty that one is positing
entities and ascribing to those independent entities the property of
emptiness, one would be treating the language of Madhyamika as
making literal assertions. But from the standpoint from which
these would be true, there are no entities and no characteristics,
and a fortiori, there are no entities having the characteristic of
being empty. The language must hence be understood, from the
ultimate perspective, not as making assertions, but rather as
ostending — indicating that which cannot be literally asserted with-
out falling into nonsense — as Wittgenstein puts it in the Tractatus ,
showing that which cannot be said.

Nagarjuna makes this much more explicit in his discussion of
positionlessness in Vigrahavyavartanl XXI-XXVIII, where he ex-
plicitly denies that the Madhyamika assert any propositions, in
virtue of there being no entities or properties presupposed by their
use of language existing independently and corresponding to the
words used. Aryadeva makes the same point at Catuhsataka XVI:
21. Candrakirti in his comments on these verses compares one who
treats emptiness as an essential property — as opposed to the lack
of any essential property, thus treating Madhyamika language as
assertoric in the sense of asserting the view that all things have the
essential nature of emptiness — to one who, upon entering a shop

214

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

and learning that there are no wares for sale, asks the shopkeeper
to sell him the “no wares .” 74 75

To hold a view of emptiness — to reify it and then attribute it to
phenomena — would then involve simultaneously reifying those phe-
nomena as having a fixed nature and denying their existence at all,
in virtue of disparaging their conventional reality as unreality by con-
trast with the reality of emptiness. It is this incoherence, so charac-
teristic of essentialist philosophies, that leads Nagarjuna to assert
that one holding such a view is completely hopeless — incapable of
accomplishing anything, philosophically or soteriologically . 76 77

74. Murti (1985) puts this point nicely: “Criticism of theories is no theory.
Criticism is but the awareness of what a theory is, how it is made up, it is not the
proposing of a new theory. Negation of positions is not one more position” (p.
xxiii).

See also Siderits (1989) for an interesting discussion of the connection between
Nagarjuna’s claim to positionlessness and contemporary antirealism. Siderits puts
the point this way:

[Nagarjuna] neither asserts nor intimates any claims about the ultimate nature of
reality, for he takes the very notion of a way that the world is independently of
our cognitive activity to be devoid of meaning. . . . The slogan The ultimate
truth is that there is no ultimate truth’ is merely a striking way of putting the
point that an acceptable canon of rationality will have to reflect human needs,
interest, and institutions, (p. 6)

I am neither completely comfortable with Siderits’s construction of the contempo-
rary realism-antirealism debate nor with his location of Nagarjuna on the antirealist
side. (I rather think that Nagarjuna would reject the presupposition of that
debate — that the relevant sense of “real” is coherent in the first place.) But the
connection he establishes between positionlessness and the rejection of a realist
ontology is instructive.

All of this will become much more explicit (if not much clearer) in the discus-
sions in XXII, XXIV, XXV, and XXVII below. I discuss this at greater length in
Garfield (unpublished).

75. Ng (1993), however, argues that this verse should be read “all false views.”
So he claims that, according to Nagarjuna, to understand emptiness is to relinquish
all false views and that anyone who holds false views about emptiness is incurable.
But Nagarjuna doesn’t say this, and the interpretation seems unfounded. See pp.
18-25.

76. The Tibetan “ bsgrub-tu-med-pa ’ (will accomplish nothing) translates the
Sanskrit term “ asadhyan , ” which can also be translated “incurable.”

77. This does not entail, however, pace Sprung (1979, p. 9, 15-16), that nothing is
intelligible. Nagarjuna spends a good deal of time developing quite lucid analyses of
conventional phenomena and their relation to emptiness. What fails to be intelligible
is, rather, the idea of inherent existence. But since no phenomena exist that way, and
since emptiness is intelligible, the actual nature of phenomena is intelligible.

Examination of Compounded Phenomena

215

This argument against the coherence of any understanding of
emptiness as itself an essence is tied very tightly to the analysis in
Chapter XXIV: 18-40 of the emptiness of emptiness and of the
connection between emptiness, dependent arising, and convention
and tied most directly to the concluding verse of the text, XXVII:
30. (The commentaries on XXIV: 36 and XXVII: 30 below may be
useful in elucidating this verse as well.) It is clearly an early antici-
pation of the powerful and climactic conclusions drawn in those
two discussions.

Chapter XIV

Examination of Connection

The word here translated as “connection” (phrad-pa) is the term
denoting the relation between the components that are com-
pounded in any compounded phenomenon. It can also describe
the relation between two things coming together in space and
time or colliding, or two things fitting together, and while this
can be taken fairly literally in the context of physical objects
when they are understood as compounded of their parts, the
relation is actually much more general than that. In fact, the
example that Nagarjuna takes as central, and one that is used by
some earlier Buddhist theorists as an example of a case of con-
nection in this sense, is visual perception. In such a case, accord-
ing to the proponent of the reality of meeting, or compounding,
the subject, the sensory organs, the sensory faculty, and the
object join together, or “connect,” not in a literal physical sense
of spatiotemporal coincidence, but rather in the sense of form-
ing an ensemble. Sense perception is, on this view, the entire
compound ensemble.

So, dialectically, this chapter follows quite naturally on the heels
of the examination of compounded entities. For we can imagine an
opponent might reason as follows: Nagarjuna may be right in deny-
ing the inherent existence of compounded entities in virtue of their
dependence upon their parts and upon their parts being com-
pounded, but surely since these phenomena depend upon being

Examination of Connection

217

compounded that relation — the connection — exists. This chapter
is aimed at replying to this position.

1. The seen, seeing, and the seer:

These three — pairwise or

All together —

Do not connect to one another.

First, he claims, these things simply don’t occur in the same
place at the same time. There is no literal s-ense in which they
connect.

2. Similarly desire, the desirous one, the object of desire,

And the remaining afflictions

And the remaining sources of perception
Are understood in this threefold way.

In the various chapters on the relation between characteristic
and characterized, Nagarjuna has argued that it makes no sense to
think of the relation between individuals and their properties or
between entities as any kind of relation between independent en-
tities at all, and that these phenomena cannot be understood as the
same, as different, or as neither.

3. Since different things connect to one another,

But in seeing, etc.,

There is no difference,

They cannot connect.

In order to have things that connect in the relevant sense, they
must be different from one another, but as we saw in the chapters
on characteristics, on desire, on seeing, on action, on motion, and
on the self, the differences of the relevant kind are not found on
analysis.

4. Not only in seeing, etc . . .

Is there no such difference:

When one thing and another are simultaneous.

It is also not tenable that there is difference.

218

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

This problem emerges not only in the analysis of intuitively uni-
tary phenomena like vision, but is perfectly general. Things that
are separate from one another cannot be coherently thought of as
inherently different entities either. For without any inherent iden-
tity, there is no basis for inherent difference. This recalls the argu-
ment of Chapter I.

5. A different thing depends on a different thing for its

difference.

Without a different thing, a different thing wouldn’t be
different.

It is not tenable for that which depends on something else
To be different from it.

For there to be substantial difference, it must be possible to
independently establish the identity and natures of the relata. But
this, Nagarjuna has argued repeatedly, is impossible.

6. If a different thing were different from a different thing,
Without a different thing, a different thing could exist.

But without that different thing, that different thing does not
exist.

It follows that it doesn’t exist.

That is, the only way that difference or the identity of a different
thing as different could be shown to exist inherently would be for
that difference to be present independently of the existence of
another different thing. But that is not so. The only alternative
would be to argue that difference is present independently in single
things. But this ignores the relational character of difference.

7. Difference is not in a different thing.

Nor is it in a nondifferent thing.

If difference does not exist,

Neither different nor identical things exist.

So difference cannot be located either as a relation between
things or as a unary property of individual things. So there is no
inherently existent difference. But it is the existence of inherent

Examination of Connection

219

difference that grounds the problem of connection. So there is no
such relation, and no problem to be solved.

8. That does not connect to itself.

Nor do different things connect to one another.

Neither connection nor
Connected nor connector exist.

The conclusion is a powerful one and, especially when conjoined
with the conclusion of the previous chapter, goes to the heart of any
Buddhist (or non-Buddhist, for that matter) ontology that seeks to
reify the entities that appear at any stage of ontological analysis. It is
quite tempting when examining dependent, compound phenomena
to think that while they themselves might not be inherently existent,
and might not be the ultimate entities of the empirical world, it must
at least be a fundamental fact that their being constituted of parts, or
dependent upon their location in a causal and mereological nexus,
exists as a fact. That would seem, in fact, to be the natural way to
interpret the doctrine of dependent origination and the emptiness of
macroscopic entities. But Nagarjuna here pulls the rug out from any
such analysis, pointing again to the emptiness of emptiness: Not
only are compounded phenomena empty of inherent existence, but
so is the relation among their constituents and determinants in vir-
tue of which they are compounded.

Chapter XV

Examination of Essence

This chapter continues the discussion begun in Chapter XIII and
carried on in Chapter XIV of the fundamental nature of things and
the relation between emptiness and existence. Here Nagarjuna
rejects the coherence of the concept of essence and explores its
ramifications for the concept of inherent existence, the concept of
an entity, and the concept of a nonentity. This chapter is also aimed
at dispelling any nihilistic interpretation of the Madhyamika philo-
sophical orientation and in explaining the deep connection be-
tween the analysis of phenomena as empty of essence and the
demonstration of the possibility of empirical reality.

1. Essence arising from

Causes and conditions makes no sense.

If essence came from causes and conditions,

Then it would be fabricated.

Essence by definition is eternal and independent. So it can’t
arise dependency. Chapter XV: 1, 2 develop this point directly.
But since all entities arise dependently, it follows that none of them
have essence. 78

78. But see Bhattacharya (1979), pp. 341-42, for a contrary view. Bhattacharya
argues that we can make sense of dependent, changeable essences. Perhaps. But

Examination of Essence

221

2. How could it be appropriate

For fabricated essence to come to be?

Essence itself is not artificial
And does not depend on another.

In these first two verses, Nagarjuna indicates the three cardinal
characteristics of an essence: An essence (or an entity that exists in
virtue of possessing an essence) is uncaused, independent of other
phenomena, and not fabricated from other things. It is important to
bear this in mind in any Madhyamika analysis of emptiness. For
when Nagarjuna argues that phenomena are all empty, it is of es-
sence in this sense that they are empty. Hence, when Nagarjuna ar-
gues that all phenomena originate in dependence upon conditions,
that all phenomena are interdependent, and that all phenomena are
fabricated (both in virtue of being compounded from parts and in
virtue of acquiring their identity as particulars through conceptual
imputation), he is thereby arguing quite directly for their emptiness.

3. If there is no essence,

How can there be difference in entities?

The essence of difference in entities
Is what is called the entity of difference.

This is an echo of the argument about difference presented in
Chapter I. Essential difference presupposes essences of individu-
als. So any argument against individual essence will count as an
argument against essential difference.

4. Without having essence or otherness-essence,

How can there be entities?

If there are essences and entities
Entities are established.

The concept of an inherently existent entity is the concept of an
entity with an essence. So without essence, there are no inherently
existing entities.

these are not the essences Nagarjuna has in mind and are not those that lie behind the
kind of pernicious reification or its counterpart, nihilism, that he is out to extirpate.

222

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

5. If the entity is not established,

A nonentity is not established.

An entity that has become different
Is a nonentity, people say.

By a nonentity, Nagarjuna means something inherently differ-
ent from some existing entity. A nontable in this sense would be
inherently different from a table. But a nonexistent in general
would be a Meinongian subsistent which is available as a basis of
predication but is intrinsically different from what it is to be an
existent — a real thing possessed of the property of being nonexis-
tent. Just as a table must be established as a determinate entity in
order to establish the nature of non tables, existence must be
established as an inherently existent property in order to establish
the parallel status of nonexistence. But neither tables nor exis-
tence can be so established. By the same token, then, there are
no inherently established nontables, nor any inherently estab-
lished nonexistents in their stead. So even though it might appear
that an analysis through emptiness would leave us only with
nontables and nonexistent phenomena, it doesn’t even leave us
with that (inherently), though it leaves us with plenty of tables,
non tables, existents, and nonexistents (conventionally).

6. Those who see essence and essential difference
And entities and nonentities,

They do not see

The truth taught by the Buddha.

If the only way that one can think about phenomena is to think
of them as things with inherent natures and to think of things
without such natures as thereby nonexistent, none of the Buddhist
doctrines of impermanence, emptiness, or liberation will make any
sense.

7. The Victorious One, through knowledge
Of reality and unreality,

In the Discourse to Katyayana ,

Refuted both “it is” and “it is not.”

Examination of Essence

223

In the Discourse to Katyayana , the Buddha argues that to assert
that things exist inherently is to fall into the extreme of reification,
to argue that things do not exist at all is to fall into the extreme of
nihilism, and to follow the middle way is neither to assert in an
unqualified way that things exist nor in an unqualified way that
things do not exist. It represents one of the fundamental suttas of
the Pali canon for Mahayana philosophy. In the sutta y the Buddha
claims that reification derives from the failure to note imperma-
nence and leads to grasping, craving, and the attendant suffering.
Nihilism, he claims, is motivated by the failure to note the empiri-
cal reality of arising phenomena. It leads to suffering from failure
to take life, others, and morality seriously enough. The middle
path of conventional existence leads to engagement in the world
without attachment. 79

8. If existence were through essence,

Then there would be no nonexistence.

A change in essence

Could never be tenable.

If for a thing to exist were for it to be a determinate entity with
an essence, then no thing would ever cease to exist or change in
any way. For an essential property is a necessary property, and it is
incoherent to say that a thing loses a necessary property.

9. If there is no essence,

What could become other?

If there is essence,

What could become other?

In the first half of this verse, the opponent replies that since the
argument in the previous verse presupposes the reality of change,

79. Kalupahana (1986) relies on this verse to argue that the entire Mulamad-
hyamakakdrikd is a “grand commentary on the Discourse to Kdtyayana” (pp. 81,
232). While this sutta is clearly important for Nagarjuna, nothing in the text justifies
this global interpretation. The range of topics Nagarjuna considers far exceeds the
scope of that sutta, and no other passage from that sutta is mentioned in the
Mulamadhyamakakarikd.

224

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

it must presuppose the reality of the changer. If it presupposes the
reality of change, it presupposes the reality of things that change
and, hence, that persist through time. In order to remain the same,
there must be some essence that accounts for this identity. Nagar-
juna replies, however, that if this persistence through time were
determined by essence, the change it putatively explains would be
impossible. Only conventional existence over time can explain
change. Nagarjuna summarizes, paraphrasing the Discourse to
Katyayana :

10. To say “it is” is to grasp for permanence.

To say “it is not” is to adopt the view of nihilism.

Therefore a wise person

Does not say “exists” or “does not exist.”

11. “Whatever exists through its essence
Cannot be nonexistent” is eternalism.

“It existed before but doesn’t now”

Entails the error of nihilism. 80

To say that if something exists, it does so in virtue of having an
essence and hence cannot change or pass out of existence would
entail the absurd position that everything is eternal. To say of
something that it existed in this strong sense— with an essence — in
the past, but does not do so now, is absurd. For if for something to
exist is for it to do so inherently, and if it is not now existent, it
could never have been. So since everything we observe is imperma-
nent, if the only existence that there could be were inherent exis-
tence, nothing could exist at all. That would be nihilism. The
upshot of this chapter is that the very concept of an essence, and
hence the very concept of an inherently existent entity at all, is
incoherent. No coherent conception of the phenomenal world can
be one in which things are posited other than conventionally . 81

80. The verse ends ' \..thal-bar ' gyur ." This form indicates that the nihilism is
taken as the unacceptable consequence that would provide a reductio on the claim
“it existed before but doesn’t now.”

81. See Ng (1993), pp. 25-27, 34-36, for a nice discussion of the connection
between this rejection of extremes and the emptiness of emptiness.

Chapter XVI

Examination of Bondage

So there are no entities. But still, from a Buddhist perspective, we
are bound: bound to our conceptions of entities and essence,
bound to our selves, bound to objects, and principally, bound to
cyclic existence itself. Surely, the opponent might ask, mustn’t the
bondage that accounts for the illusions so ruthlessly analyzed in the
previous chapter be intrinsically real? If not, what is the causal
basis for all of these illusions and all of this suffering? In a Buddhist
framework, this bondage to cyclic existence is instantiated in end-
less transmigration in saipsara, and freedom from bondage would
be liberation from cyclic existence into nirvana. We will postpone a
discussion of the precise nature of that liberation and of nirvana
until we reach the chapters where that topic is discussed, namely,
XXII and XXV. Nagarjuna begins with an examination of transmi-
gration and the entity that transmigrates:

1. If compounded phenomena transmigrate, 82
They do not transmigrate as permanent.

82. The Tibetan term translated as “transmigrate” ('khor, Skt: samsar) is a cog-
nate of the term “ santsara y ” or cyclic existence. It literally means go around and could
also be translated with justice as “flow.” But the root idea here is that of cycling or
circulating or participating in a phenomenal reality conceived as multicyclic. In this
chapter, as in Chapter XIII, I opt to translate “ ’ du byed ” as “compounded phenom-
ena,” rather than, as Kalupahana (1986) does, “dispositions.” This follows the Ti-
betan commentarial tradition and makes better sense of the argument.

226

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

If they are impermanent they do not transmigrate.

The same approach applies to sentient beings.

Nagarjuna sets up a by now familiar destructive dilemma: Either
compounded phenomena — of which sentient beings, the beings
who are bound, are instances — are permanent or impermanent.
Let us just consider the compounded phenomena who are sentient
and hence who transmigrate: If they are thought of as permanent,
they cannot transmigrate because transmigration involves, by defi-
nition, change. And what is permanent, as we have seen, cannot
change. But if they are impermanent, then they do not endure
through time and, hence, cannot transmigrate. So no sentient be-
ing considered as an inherent entity can be conceived of as a trans-
migrator in cyclic existence.

2. If someone transmigrates,

Then if, when sought in the fivefold way

In the aggregates and in the sense spheres and in the elements,

He is not there, what transmigrates?

Given that no inherently existent person can be found upon
analysis as the bearer of the aggregates, as identical to the aggre-
gates, as different from the aggregates, as the collection of the
aggregates, or as the arrangement of the aggregates, and mu tat is
mutandis for other possible modes of analysis in terms of domains
of knowledge or experience and in terms of basic elements, it
follows that there is no inherently existent subject of transmigra-
tion. If the transmigrator cannot be identified on analysis, though,
neither can the transmigration itself. It will follow that there is no
inherently existent transmigration and, hence, no inherently exis-
tent bondage to cyclic existence.

3. If one transmigrates from grasping 83 to grasping, then
One would be nonexistent.

Neither existent nor grasping,

Who could this transmigrator be?

83. This term (nye-bar-len-pa) is used in a quite general sense: To grasp could be
to cling to a possession, to regard attributes or experiences as part of oneself, or to
grasp an object in consciousness.

Examination of Bondage

227

“Grasping” here refers primarily to grasping the aggregates as
one’s self. Transmigration — or for that matter continuation within
one life, which from the Madhyamika perspective is exactly the
same kind of process — involves moving from grasping one set of
phenomena as one’s self to grasping another in the same way. That is
one of the most fundamental delusions from a Buddhist standpoint.
But grasping can also be the grasping of an object as an object, or
the clinging to possessions. Life in saqisara, Nagarjuna would insist,
can equally well be characterized in any of these ways. But if in
order to exist as an individual one would have to retain one’s iden-
tity over time since on this view it is of the very nature of cyclic
existence that one constantly changes from one moment to another,
then it would follow that no subject exists. But if there is no subject
of grasping, there can be no grasping. So, on the supposition that to
exist and to transmigrate is to exist as a continuing entity, there is no
way to make sense of the phenomenal world. So an inherently
existent grasper, posited in order to guarantee the reality of cyclic
existence, in fact makes the reality of cyclic existence incoherent.

4. How could compounded phenomena pass into nirvana?

That would not be tenable.

How could a sentient being pass into nirvana?

That would not be tenable.

If compounded phenomena are permanent, grasping is perma-
nent. And if grasping is permanent, samsara is permanent. And if
samsara is permanent, then nirvana is impossible. But the philoso-
pher who is positing inherently existent bondage is doing so in order
to defend a Buddhist perspective on cyclic existence and nirvana.
This is precisely the motivation for the reification — the worry that
saqisara and nirvana are, if not inherently existent, nonexistent. So
this conclusion is inadmissible for such an opponent.

5. All compounded phenomena are arising and ceasing things:

Not bound, not released.

For this reason a sentient being

Is not bound, not released.

228

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Neither bondage nor release can be seen as inherently existent,
nor as inherent properties of sentient beings. This is the conclusion
of the argument that follows. Nagarjuna first considers bondage as
an inherent property, and then liberation:

6. If grasping were bondage,

Then the one who is grasping would not be bound.

But one who is not grasping is not bound.

In what circumstances will one be bound?

If grasping is identified with the property of bondage, then the
continuity of bondage across transmigration is inexplicable: The
problem is that grasping is not only the cause, but is also the effect
of bondage. Delusion by which we are bound, from a Buddhist
perspective, leads us to grasp at things; that grasping perpetuates
delusion and bondage. To the extent that we grasp onto external
phenomena or onto the self as inherently existent, we are bound to
the delusions that constitute and ground saipsara. To the extent
that we are bound in delusion, we continue to grasp. The bondage
is hence not only conditioned by, but overarches, particular in-
stances of grasping. But we don’t want to infer from the fact that
grasping and bondage are not identical that the relinquishing of all
grasping would not free one. The task is then to figure out the
nature of bondage, which must be conceived as relational.

7. If prior to binding

There is a bound one,

There would be bondage, but there isn’t.

The rest has been explained by the gone, the not-gone, and the
goer.

The only way that bondage itself could be an inherently existent
phenomenon would be if it could exist prior to and independently
of a bound sentient being. But then the case would be strictly
analogous to motion (as well as to several other analysands we
have considered so far). That is, just as there is no motion apart
from the mover, there is no bondage apart from the bound. The
argument can be applied in a strictly parallel way.

Examination of Bondage

229

8. Whoever is bound is not released.

Whoever is not bound does not get released.

If a bound one were being released,

Bondage and release would occur simultaneously.

Nagarjuna then recalls another argument from Chapter II, the
argument against the possibility of the beginning of motion. There,
Nagarjuna argued that motion could not begin in a stationary ob-
ject since it is not moving, nor in a moving object since it is already
in motion. And there can be no moment when a thing is both
moving and stationary, nor any moment when an entity is neither.
Similarly, nirvana cannot arise in one in sarpsara, nor in one al-
ready in nirvana. One cannot be simultaneously in samsara and
nirvana. Nor is there any third option.

9. “I, without grasping, will pass beyond sorrow,

And I will attain nirvana,” one says.

Whoever grasps like this

Has a great grasping.

There is a stylistic feature in this verse that deserves note: The
pronoun “I” ( bdag ) is uncharacteristically fronted in the sentence
and is emphasized with the focus particle (ni), Nagarjuna is hence
drawing attention to the fact that the individual in whose mouth
this verse is put is grasping to his own identity as an agent and as a
continuing subject both through sarpsara and into nirvana. This
grasping onto self, he suggests, precludes the nirvana the speaker
craves. But Nagarjuna presents another argument as well: It is also
possible to grasp after nirvana — to reify it as a state and to crave it
as a phenomenon inherently different from saipsara and as highly
desirable since it is indeed characterized as liberation from suffer-
ing. But this grasping onto the end of grasping is itself a grasping
and so precludes the attainment of nirvana. Nirvana requires, ac-
cording to Nagarjuna, a complete cessation of grasping, including
that onto nirvana itself. While that might seem paradoxical, it is
not: To grasp onto something in this sense requires, inter alia, that
one reify it. By refusing to reify liberation, in virtue of seeing it as
the corelative of bondage, which itself is not inherently existent, it

230

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

is possible to pursue the path to liberation without creating at the
same time a huge obstacle on that path— the root delusion with
regard to nirvana itself. Possible, that is, but perhaps not that
easy . 84 * 85

10. When you can’t bring about nirvana,

Nor the purification of cyclic existence,

What is cyclic existence,

And what is the nirvana you examine?

Anyone who is subject to either of these pathologies — grasping to
one’s self or grasping for nirvana — is incapable of attaining that
peace. So, Nagarjuna urges, in order to make such progress possi-
ble, one should reexamine one’s conception of the nature of phe-
nomena in cyclic existence (both oneself and external phenomena)
and nirvana itself. By coming to see their ultimate emptiness, he
suggests, one can relinquish that grasping and attain that liberation.

Neither nirvana nor sarpsara are inherently existent. Ultimately
both are nonexistent. So, what, Nagarjuna asks rhetorically, are
they? The answer is that they are conventionally real, dependently
arisen phenomena that are empty of inherent existence. In virtue
of that fact, it is possible to escape the former and to attain the
latter. But that escape would be impossible were they inherently
existent and is impossible for anyone who takes them to be so.

84. In Yukti$a$tika 11, Nagarjuna asserts “This is nirvana in this very life!” He
emphatically rejects the positing of nirvapa as a distinct entity divorced from
sarpsara. This will emerge much more explicitly in the discussion of nirvana in XXV
below.

85. It is also important to note that this indicates a difference in kind between
grasping for nirvana and an aspiration to attain buddhahood. For it is central to
Mahayana Buddhist practice to develop the altruistic aspiration to attain buddha-
hood for the sake of all sentient beings— to enhance one’s knowledge, skill, and
compassion so as to maximally benefit others. But this aspiration can be cultivated
without reification of self, of the goal, or of the objects of compassion or action and,
hence, without grasping of the kind at issue.

Chapter XVII

Examination of Actions and
Their Fruits

Arguing for the emptiness of bondage and liberation, however,
raises a further question that demands an answer: If there is no real
bondage and no real release, what are the effects of our actions?
For it would appear, at least given standard Buddhist moral theory
and the doctrine of karma on which it is grounded , 86 that meritori-
ous actions conduce to liberation and that morally wrong actions
increase bondage. Given the emptiness of these latter, an analysis
of the consequences of action is in order. Nagarjuna begins with
Buddhist moral truisms, accepted by the Madhyamika as well as by
members of other Buddhist schools. It is important to note that the
first nineteen verses of this chapter represent the views of four
distinct opponents in order of increasing similitude to the Mad-
hyamika understanding. Despite the fact that Nagarjuna sets these
views up as targets, however, some of the views the opponents put
on the table are, suitably interpreted, shared by Nagarjuna. Each

86. That is, broadly speaking, that our actions, words, and intentions have
consequences that determine the future course of our lives. Karma from the Bud-
dhist standpoint is a straightforwardly deterministic process and not a matter of
accounts being kept by a cosmic accountant. The doctrine can be applied both
within a single life or across rebirths and with respect both to individuals and to
groups of individuals.

232

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

can be seen as, despite being inadmissible as a characterization of a
nonconventional basis for the relation between action and its ef-
fects, a reasonable empirical assessment of at least part of the
conventional reality in this domain.

1. Self-restraint and benefiting others

With a compassionate mind is the Dharma.

This is the seed for

Fruits in this and future lives.

2. The Unsurpassed Sage has said

That actions are either intention or intentional.

The varieties of these actions

Have been announced in many ways.

The classification to which Nagarjuna refers is a partition of
actions into mental and physical. Mental actions are mere inten-
tions on this view; physical actions and speech (generally distin-
guished in Buddhist psychology and action theory) are properly
intentional. That is, the latter two involve a mental and a nonmen-
tal component; the mental actions only involve a mental compo-
nent. Verse 3 clarifies this:

3. Of these, what is called “intention”

Is mental desire.

What is called “intentional”

Comprises the physical and verbal.

In the next verse, an opponent uses these truisms as a platform
for the defense of the view that actions themselves must remain in
existence until their consequences are observed. Actions that de-
rive from renouncing the world are different from those that derive
from worldly concerns. This difference in nature, he argues, must
explain the difference in their consequences:

4. Speech and action and all

Kinds of unabandoned and abandoned actions

Examination of Actions and Their Fruits

233

And resolve 87
As well as . . .

5. Virtuous and nonvirtuous actions
Derived from pleasure,

As well as intention and morality:

These seven 88 are the kinds of action.

The kinds of actions to which Nagarjuna’s imaginary opponent
refers are simply the various kinds of virtuous and nonvirtuous
actions. In general, morally good actions are done for the sake of
pleasure for others; morally bad actions sacrifice others’ good for
one’s own pleasure. The opponent, however, goes further, point-
ing out that these actions have diverse long-term consequences
that must be explained:

6. If until the time of ripening

Action had to remain in place, it would have to be permanent.
If it has ceased, then having ceased,

How will a fruit arise?

The problem is this: Given that the consequence of an action
may be far in the future, something must persist to connect the
action to the result. This is a kind of karmic analog of doubts about
action at a distance. It is the same kind of move that lies behind
trace theories of memory in recent philosophy of mind. So this first
position is that there must be some permanent entity that remains
in existence until the consequences of an action occur.

A second possibility is that some third thing mediates the rela-
tion between action and consequence — a kind of karmic link that
is generated by the action and remains in the psychophysical contin-

87. rnam rig byed min pa (Skt: avijnaptaya ) . A technical term that can refer to
such things as a monk’s vows or a resolution to perform some action.

88. The arithmetic here is none too clear. Tsong Khapa has it like this: (1) good
and bad speech; (2) good and bad physical action; (3) abandoned and unabandoned
actions; (4) meritorious actions; (5) nonmeritorious actions; (6) the intention to do
good actions; (7) the intention to do bad actions. Just what the principle of partition
is here is not obvious. Clearly the categories overlap (pp. 300-301).

234

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

uum until the consequence is produced. The interlocutor then of-
fers an analogy popular in Buddhist philosophy:

7. As for a continuum, such as the sprout,

It comes from a seed.

From that arises the fruit. Without a seed,

It would not come into being.

That is, just as every actual fruit requires an actual seed as its
predecessor and a sprout to mediate between them, the opponent
reasons, every consequence of action requires an actual action and
an actual karmic link between the action and the consequence. The
next three verses extend this analogy:

8. Since from the seed comes the continuum,
and from the continuum comes the fruit,

The seed precedes the fruit.

Therefore there is neither nonexistence nor permanence.

That is, this interlocutor points out, the position developed in
XVII: 5-6 requires that actions either be permanent or nonexis-
tent. His own view, on the other hand, allows actions to exist as
impermanent and is, hence, more plausible:

9. So, in a mental continuum,

From a preceding intention

A consequent mental state arises.

Without this, it would not arise.

10. Since from the intention comes the continuum,

And from the continuum the fruit arises,

Action precedes the fruit.

Therefore there is neither nonexistence nor permanence.

In the next verse, another opponent offers an orthodox formula-
tion from a substantialist Buddhist school, arguing that particular
kinds of action are described as the methods of attaining realiza-
tion and that particular rewards for the practicioner are mentioned

Examination of Actions and Their Fruits

235

as consequences of realization. The implication is that, since these
are specified in sutras as real, they must be inherently existent:

1 1 . The ten pure paths of action

Are the method of realizing the Dharma.

These fruits of the Dharma in this and other lives

Are the five pleasures.

“The ten paths” simply denotes the totality of virtuous actions as
characterized by one of the Buddhist botanies of morally worthy
action . 89 The five pleasures are the pleasures appropriate to the
various sense faculties. According to the opponent, all we need to
do in order to reach enlightenment and to lead good lives is to act
virtuously. The principal consequence of this is that we will enjoy
temporal happiness.

Yet another interlocutor replies that this wholly misunderstands
the Buddha’s explanation of the relation between action and its
consequences. While it is the case that acting well is an important
ingredient in Buddhist practice and in any account of what it is to
lead a good life, and while it is true that when one lives well, one
in general is rewarded with material happiness, this hardly indi-
cates that action, the agent, or the consequences of action are
inherently existent. Rather, this more sophisticated opponent sug-
gests, the nature of the link is completely abstract, like a legal
obligation : 90

12. If such an analysis were advanced,

There would be many great errors.

Therefore, this analysis

Is not tenable here.

89. Refraining from killing, stealing, adultery, lying, deception, slander, gossip,
avarice, hatred, and philosophical error.

90. Kalupahana (1986) misreads XVII: 12-19 as Nagarjuna’s own view. This is
understandable, as Nagarjuna is providing four rival accounts of the relation be-
tween action and its karmic consequences. Each on his view contains a kernel of
truth; each is indeed accurate in a sense, though misleading in the sense in which it
is intended. This final position is closest to Nagarjuna’s position and can easily be
confused with it, but to read it this way misses the significance of the transition at
XVII: 20.

236

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

13. I will then explain what is tenable here:

The analysis propounded by all

Buddhas, self-conquerors

And disciples according to which . . .

14. Action is like an uncancelled promissory note

And like a debt.

Of the realms it is fourfold.

Moreover, its nature is neutral.

Using the metaphor of a promissory note, the defender of this
view compares action and its consequences to a document attesting
to a particular debt or other legal action: Though the act to which
the document attests was in one sense momentary, its conse-
quences, and the evidence of its reality, are unlimited in duration.
So the consequences of any action — however local that action might
appear to be — reverberate through all realms of existence . 91 More-
over, the fundamental nature of action and its consequences is neu-
tral. That is, simply considered as such, on this view, neither action
nor its consequent trace is either positive or negative. Any particu-
lar action or trace may of course be so — but action itself is equally
capable of being positive or negative in character. We now turn to
specific advice to enable one to realize the nature of reality and to
abandon the mundane concerns and attachments that lead to bind-
ing actions (advice with which Nagarjuna would not take issue):

15. By abandoning, that is not abandoned.

Abandonment occurs through meditation.

Therefore, through the nonexpired,

The fruit of action arises.

Simply by resolving to abandon attachment one cannot thereby
succeed in shedding it. It is difficult to accomplish this. Attachment
arises as a consequence of the persistent, pervasive psychological,
verbal, and physical habits that together constitute what Buddhist
philosophers call the “root delusion/’ the ignorance of the true

91. The four realms reflect traditional Buddhist cosmology: the desire realm,
the form realm, the formless realm, the realm of freedom.

Examination of Actions and Their Fruits

237

nature of things. That delusion consists in confusing existence with
inherent existence and issues inevitably in one of the two extreme
views — reification or nihilism. Only through extensive meditation
on the nature of phenomena and on the nature of emptiness can
these habits be abandoned, and only through an understanding of
the ultimate nature of things can the fruit of actions done through
abandonment — that is, liberation from the suffering of cyclic
existence — be attained. The promissory note metaphor is at work
here as well. The idea is that one cannot simply cancel a promis-
sory note on one’s own without paying the debt. One must do
something more substantial to discharge one’s obligation to one’s
creditor.

16. If abandonment occurred through abandoning, and
If action were destroyed through transformation,

The destruction of action, etc.,

And other errors would arise.

If one thought that one could just resolve to abandon attach-
ment and delusion and succeed, that would be to treat attachment
and attached action as trivial entities — even as illusory in the full
sense. Just as when one sees a mirage, one can, knowing that it is a
mirage, stop seeing it as water. That is possible for illusory things,
but not so for empirically real ones. It takes effort to see an actual
puddle as empty — not of conventional water, but of nonconven-
tional inherent existence — and it takes effort to stop reifying hab-
its. Again, though this is articulated in defense of the opponent’s
view, this is a sophisticated opponent, and Nagarjuna in fact agrees
with much of this.

17. From all these actions in a realm,

Whether similar or dissimilar,

At the moment of birth

Only one will arise.

One performs countless various actions in one’s life. And the
confluence of the karmic consequences of all of them, on this view,
are realized in the beginning of a single individual at the moment

238

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

of rebirth (the one who arises). This comment is, of course, most
directly about rebirth and the mechanism of karma in transmigra-
tion. Here is a way to understand that explicit point: The mecha-
nism by which karma operates in rebirth is not that each individual
action in a continuum designated as an individual remains perma-
nently in place or leaves a substantial trace that lies dormant until
it produces its consequence. This is indeed how karma is often
conceived by substantialist Buddhist schools. Rather, each mo-
ment of such a continuum, including the moment of rebirth, is a
consequence, through the mechanism of dependent arising, of all
of the previous moments of that continuum (and, of course, of
much else besides). Those karmic consequences are, as it were,
“summed up” in the total state of the individual at birth.

But of course the implications of this are more general and
concern every moment of any life. They can hence be made inde-
pendently of any discussion of transmigration, though of course
they help to demystify that Buddhist doctrine, at least as it is
conceived in Mahayana philosophy. The point is this: Every mo-
ment of our lives represents the causal consequences of, inter alia,
all of our prior actions. No action “lies dormant” waiting for its
consequences to emerge. Nor does any action somehow become
“canceled” when some salient consequence is noticed. There is no
accounting kept, and no debit and credit system, either from the
causal or the moral point of view in the continuum of human action
and experience. Rather, at each moment we are the total conse-
quence of what we have done and of what we have experienced.
And the only sense in which some past action may determine some
future reward is one in which that past action, as well as other
conditions, have determined a state now that, together with other
future conditions, will determine that reward. Mutatis mutandis,
of course, for negative consequences. This sober empiricist ac-
count of these matters forms the basis for Mahayana moral theory
and its account of the nature of soteriological practice.

18. In this visible world,

All actions of the two kinds,

Each comprising action and the unexpired separately.

Will remain while ripening.

Examination of Actions and Their Fruits 239

But here the opponent slides over into the substantialism that
Nagarjuna will criticize. For although he has characterized actions
as impermanent, he has retained the seed-and-sprout metaphor
that has the actions identifiable over time and, hence, as having an
independent existence and identity. Moreover, he suggests, their
consequences are determinate in time, delimited by death or
nirvana:

19. That fruit, if extinction or death
Occurs, ceases.

Regarding this, a distinction between the stainless
And the stained is drawn.

Nagarjuna now mounts a reply against all of these positions
collectively:

20. Emptiness and nonannihilation;

Cyclic existence and nonpermanence:

That action is nonexpiring

Is taught by the Buddha.

All phenomena, including action, its result, and the connection
between them, will come out to be empty of inherent existence, yet
conventionally real; they will be part of cyclic existence, but will be
impermanent. This is not surprising. But Nagarjuna also says that
no action expires (retaining the promissory note metaphor). Obvi-
ously, he cannot mean that actions are permanent. Rather, we
should understand this to assert two related theses: First, it indi-
cates that the consequences of actions do not cease at some point.
All actions have ramifications into the indefinite future, due to
dependent arising. Second, actions themselves, being empty of
inherent existence are not entities capable of passing out of exis-
tence, when passing out of existence is interpreted to mean the
cessation entirely of something that once existed inherently. Since
actions are not inherently existent, they are not suitable bases for
inherent cessation. And this resolves the final apparent paradox:
The tension between the assertion that nothing is permanent and
that all action is nonexpiring. All phenomena are indeed imperma-

240

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

nent, but that entails both that they do not inherently cease and
that their effects are indefinite in scope.

21. Because action does not arise,

It is seen to be without essence.

Because it is not arisen,

It follows that it is nonexpiring.

This verse emphasizes the second reading of the thesis of the
nonexpiration of action and echoes the arguments from Chapter
VII.

22. If action had an essence.

It would, without doubt, be eternal.

Action would be uncreated.

Because there can be no creation of what is eternal.

Moreover, Nagarjuna reminds us, again drawing heavily on the
arguments reviewed and redeployed in Chapter VII, things with
essences don’t arise and cease, and can’t be related causally to other
things. If action existed inherently, it couldn’t be initiated. So, if one
were trying to preserve the reality of action and karma against the
analysis in terms of emptiness (because one viewed that analysis as
undermining their genuine existence), it would be pointless to de-
fend the existence of action and karma as inherent existence.

23. If an action were uncreated,

Fear would arise of encountering something not done.

And the error of not preserving

One’s vows would arise.

Nagarjuna here and in XVII: 24 draws some of the moral conse-
quences of the nihilistic view of action that seems to follow from the
conditions set on its existence by the reificationist: Actions would
not come into being through agency and so would have no regular
relation to any agents. And so one might find oneself experiencing
the consequences of some action one had not performed, or find
that it was, in some sense, one’s own action. One would not take
action seriously as one’s own responsibility and would not worry

Examination of Actions and Their Fruits 241

about moral infractions. Monks and nuns would break their vows.
Since morality depends on a distinction between morally positive
and morally negative acts, if there were no actions, or if actions
could not be thought of as initiated by their agents, there would be
no morality. From another perspective, the preservation of vows
would be an impossibility anyway since preserving the vows requires
taking action, which would be impossible if action were uncreated.

24. All conventions would then

Be contradicted, without doubt.

It would be impossible to draw a distinction
Between virtue and evil.

Moreover, Nagarjuna argues in the next verse, if actions had
essences, they could not cease, and if their karmic consequences
had essences since they would need no conditions to arise, they
would just keep arising:

25. Whatever is mature would mature
Time and time again.

If there were essence, this would follow,

Because action would remain in place.

26. While this action has affliction as its nature
This affliction is not real in itself.

If affliction is not in itself,

How can action be real in itself?

Moreover, Nagarjuna continues, afflicted action is, for the oppo-
nent, done essentially in affliction. But given that affliction has
already been shown to be empty in the chapter on suffering (XII),
how could it serve as an essence for action?

27. Action and affliction

Are taught to be the conditions that produce bodies.

If action and affliction

Are empty, what would one say about bodies?

The opponent replies, however, that action and affliction are
referred to in sutras as the causes of different kinds of rebirth and

242

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

of different characteristics in rebirths. And since beings are indeed
reborn and do indeed have characteristics, how, from the stand-
point of a Buddhist view of rebirth, could empty actions and empty
karmic consequences explain this?

28 . Obstructed by ignorance ,

And consumed by passion, the experiencer
Is neither different from the agent
Nor identical with it.

Nagarjuna focuses in his reply on the nature of the individual
who is the putative agent of these actions and experiencer of their
consequences. The present objection rests on the presupposition
that they exist inherently. That is why the problem arises about
how empty actions and empty karmic links could be sufficient to
link their properties. So Nagarjuna emphasizes that neither an
analysis in terms of inherent identity nor one in terms of inherent
difference between agent and action will suffice. Both presup-
poses, incoherently, the inherent existence and hence the posses-
sion of an essence, of each term in the putative relation. But this of
course recalls the problem posed near the end of Chapter I: How
can actual effects arise from empty conditions? And Nagarj una’s
reply echoes the reply developed there:

29. Since this action

Is not arisen from a condition,

Nor arisen causelessly,

It follows that there is no agent.

Since the action does not arise inherently, it lacks inherent exis-
tence. Since, as per the discussion of agent and action in Chapter
VIII, empty actions entail empty agents, there is no inherently
existing agent of the kind presupposed by the objector. But the
objector continues:

30. If there is no action and agent,

Where could the fruit of action be?

Without a fruit,

Where is there an experiencer?

Examination of Actions and Their Fruits 243

That is, if we deny the reality of the action and the agent, we
seem to deny the reality of the consequences of the action and,
hence, the experiencer, whether “without understanding and con-
sumed by passion” or not. But Nagarjuna’s view is not that these
things are non-existent, as he emphasized in XVII: 20 — only that
they are empty. So it does follow that the consequences are
empty — but that does not entail in any way that they are nonexis-
tent. And it follows that the consequence and the karmic link are
empty. From this it follows that the reborn individual whose exis-
tence and characteristics are determined by this causal sequence is
also empty of inherent existence. And if so, there is no problem
about how his/her genesis is dependent upon an empty sequence.
Nagarjuna introduces an analogy to explain this situation:

31. Just as the teacher, by magic.

Makes a magical illusion, and
By that illusion

Another illusion is created,

32. In that way are an agent and his action:

The agent is like the illusion.

The action

Is like the illusion's illusion.

That is, we can understand the entire sequence of agent, ac-
tion, consequences of action, and arising of new agent, whether
within a single lifetime or — in the context of Buddhist ontology
and doctrine — across lifetimes, as an entirely empty sequence
with entirely empty stages. But that does not prevent its being
perceived, or its reality for those who participate therein.

33. Afflictions, actions, bodies,

Agents, and fruits are

Like a city of Gandharvas and
Like a mirage or a dream.

Again, it is important to emphasize that emptiness, rather than
being a kind of nonactuality contrasting with empirical reality, is in
fact the very condition of empirical reality and hence the only kind

244

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

of genuine actuality. Mirages and dreams are actual phenomena,
which actually appear and which have consequences. But that does
not mean that they appear to us in a nondeceptive way. Mirages
are not water and do not quench thirst, and dream-elephants carry
no loads. By analogy, saipsara, action, karmic link, and conse-
quence, Nagarjuna argues, are real empirical phenomena, but are
empty of anything more than conventional existence. While they
may appear to exist inherently, either as persistent phenomena, as
processes or elements of processes, or as abstract phenomena — as
per the various opposing views considered in this chapter — they do
not so exist. For to exist in those ways would in fact be incoherent.
This analysis hence does not entail the nonexistence of agent and
action, except from the ultimate point of view. Rather it explains
how it is possible for them to exist at all.

Chapter XVIII

Examination of Self and Entities

A good deal of the confusion Nagarjuna diagnoses in the previous
two chapters concerns the presupposition that the self, as an af-
flicted being capable of liberation from suffering, must be thought
of as an inherently real entity. In this chapter, therefore, Nagar-
juna turns to an examination of the self, per se, apart from its
relation to such things as perception, action, suffering, affliction,
and so forth, as he has examined it in prior chapters.

1. If the self were the aggregates,

It would have arising and ceasing (as properties).

If it were different from the aggregates,

It would not have the characteristics of the aggregates.

If there is an inherently existent self, it must either be identical
to or different from the aggregates. The aggregates are the more
basic components into which the individual divides upon analysis.
In standard Buddhist analysis, they include the physical body,
sensation, perception, dispositions, and consciousness or cogni-
tion. It is important to note, though, that this particular analysis
has no deep philosophical significance. It reflects an essentially
empirical psychological theory about the best explanatory frame-
work to use in comprehending human behavior and the most
useful way for a Buddhist practitioner to attend to his/her experi-

246

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

ence. As we have seen already, the aggregates are themselves
empty, and as much Buddhist psychology emphasizes, they, too,
are subject to further decomposition. But Nagarjuna’s argument
proceeds independently of any particular decomposition. No mat-
ter how one analyzes the human being, if we are to posit over and
above the components into which it divides an inherently existent
self, that self must be either identical to or different from those
components. (This argument, by the way, appears in virtually the
same form in On Man by Sextus Empiricus.)

But if the self is identical to the aggregates, it will be constantly
changing, constantly arising and ceasing, since the aggregates are
constantly arising and ceasing. This is so whether one takes the self
to be identical to some one of the aggregates or to the whole
collection of the aggregates. If, on the other hand, one takes the
self to be distinct from the aggregates, the relation between them
becomes completely mysterious; the self becomes unknowable,
and the fate of the aggregates becomes irrelevant to the fate of the
self. This is because the only objects ever given to us in introspec-
tion are the aggregates (a familiar Humean insight), and the self
we presumably care about is one we know. And it would be a bit
bizarre to suggest that whatever happens to my mind, body, mem-
ory, sensory experience, and so forth, is independent of what hap-
pens to me.

One must, of course, keep in mind that this destructive dilemma
depends upon the attempt to identify a single inherently existent
self and does not undermine the possibility of a conventionally
identified self posited on the basis of the aggregates. So what
Nagarjuna is emphatically not doing is arguing that there are no
aggregates in any sense or that there are no persons, agents, sub-
jects, and so forth. The hypothesis for reductio is that over and
above (or below and beneath) any composite of phenomena collec-
tively denoted by “I” or by a proper name, there is a single substan-
tial entity that is the referent of such a term.

But, the proponent of the inherently existent self asks, what is
the bearer of the self’s properties and the thing that possesses
those aggregates? The first half of XVIII: 2 raises this question.
The second half begins Nagarjuna’s reply, which occupies the re-
mainder of the chapter and constitutes a substantial portion of his

Examination of Self and Entities 247

positive view on the nature of self from the standpoint of ontology
and soteriology:

2. If there were no self,

Where would the self’s (properties) be?

From the pacification of the self and what belongs to it.

One abstains from grasping onto “I” and “mine.”

Nagarjuna replies that once one stops trying to posit an indepen-
dent self, the problem posed simply vanishes. That is, the worry
about the possessor of the aggregates and properties of the self
occurs only given that one conceives of them as properties and
aggregates that are essentially of something. The insight is a bit
abstract, but it is the same one that Hume was after in the Fig
argument in the Treatise . 92 Much of the motivation for positing a
substantial self is the intuition that since its properties and compo-
nents exist, they must exist somewhere — that there must be a sub-
stratum in which they inhere. But once we give up that conception
of what it is for a property or a component to exist (as Nagarjuna
has argued that we must in Chapters V, VI, and IX above), the
drive to posit a substratum vanishes. And when the drive to posit
the substratum vanishes, we simply, Nagarjuna urges, think of the
aggregates and properties as associated aggregates and properties,
not as my aggregates and properties.

3. One who does not grasp onto “I” and “mine,”

That one does not exist.

One who does not grasp onto “I” and “mine,”

He does not perceive.

These are corelative. When one stops grasping the aggregates
and the self as independent entities or as the possessions of inde-
pendent entities, one recognizes one’s own lack of inherent exis-
tence. One also recognizes the lack of inherent existence of the
aggregates, as in the case of perception. This is not to say that one
ceases conventionally to exist or that one goes blind — rather it is

92. See Hume (1975), pp. 235-39.

248

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

that one comes to understand one’s own existence and that of
other entities in the context of emptiness and, hence, to regard that
existence as necessarily relational and conventional.

The relation between the second and third verses of this chapter
is also important from the standpoint of the relation between
theory and practice, philosophy and soteriology: Nagarjuna empha-
sizes the two-way streets in this neighborhood. Understanding emp-
tiness leads one to grasp less, to become more detached. Relaxing
one’s tendency to grasp leads to a realization of emptiness. Philoso-
phy, meditation, and the practice of the moral virtues that issue in
the relaxation of grasping are conceived from this vantage point as
necessarily mutually supportive.

4. When views of “I” and “mine” are extinguished.

Whether with respect to the internal or external,

The appropriator ceases.

This having ceased, birth ceases.

When one completely relinquishes the view of entities and the
self as inherently existent and when all habits of reification have
been eliminated, Nagarjuna urges, liberation from cyclic existence
and suffering have been achieved. Nagarjuna defers the precise
characterization of nirvana to the chapter devoted to its examina-
tion and that devoted to the examination of the status of the
Tathagata (XXV and XXII, respectively).

5. Action and misery having ceased, there is nirvana.

Action and misery come from conceptual thought.

This comes from mental fabrication.

Fabrication ceases through emptiness.

The diagnosis, though, of the predicament of saqisara and the
corresponding prescription are clear: Grasping, contaminated ac-
tion, and suffering are rooted in delusion, and this delusion comes
from cognitive error. The root delusion — the fundamental cogni-
tive error — is the confusion of merely conventional existence with
inherent existence. The realization of emptiness eliminates that
fabrication of essence, which eliminates grasping, contaminated
action, and its pernicious consequences.

Examination of Self and Entities

249

6. That there is a self has been taught,

And the doctrine of no-self,

By the buddhas, as well as the

Doctrine of neither self nor nonself.

There are many discussions of the way to think about the self in
the Buddhist canon. For those who are nihilistic about the self
(such as contemporary eliminative materialists or classical Indian
Carvakas), it is important to explain the conventional reality of the
self. For those who tend to reify the seif, the doctrine of no-self is
taught, that is, the doctrine of the emptiness of the self. But,
Nagarjuna claims, as a preamble to the next verse, there is a
deeper view of the matter — a doctrine of neither self nor nonself.

That doctrine is closely tied to that of the emptiness of emptiness.
Both the terms “self” and “no-self” together with any conceptions
that can be associated with them, Nagarjuna claims, are conven-
tional designations. They may each be soteriologically and analyti-
cally useful antidotes to extreme metaphysical views and to the
disturbances those views occasion. But to neither corresponds an
entity — neither a thing that we could ever find on analysis and
identify with the self, nor a thing or state that we could identify with
no-self. The terms and the properties they designate are themselves
empty, despite the fact that they are used to designate emptiness. To
say neither self nor no-self is, from this perspective, not to shrug
one’s shoulders in indecision but to recognize that while each of
these is a useful characterization of the situation for some purposes,
neither can be understood as correctly ascribing a property to an
independently existent entity. And if they cannot be understood in
this way, what are we really saying?

7. What language expresses is nonexistent.

The sphere of thought is nonexistent.

Unarisen and unceased, like nirvana

Is the nature of things.

This insight is developed further in this verse. Here Nagarjuna be-
gins to move towards his famous and surprising identification of nir-
vana with sarpsara, and of emptiness with conventional reality. This

250

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

identification of what in earlier Buddhism were regarded as wholly
different from one another and this characterization of the mundane
in terms heretofore reserved for the putatively transcendent are
among Nagarjuna’s most radical and original moves and are cen-
tral to the development of a distinctively Mahay ana outlook. In the
first two lines, he reiterates that there are no actual convention-
independent entities that correspond to the ostensible referring
terms or predicates in our language. But, he argues, from the empti-
ness of things, it follows that they never either arise or cease. This
does not mean that they are permanent, of course. Rather it means
that while arising and ceasing and consequent impermanence are
features of all conventional phenomena and are among the features
that make them empty, from the ultimate point of view, as was
argued in Chapter VII, there is no ultimate basis for arising and
ceasing. But if nirvana is liberation from cyclic existence and hence
from arising and ceasing, it follows that, from the ultimate stand-
point, all things in saqisara are actually just as they are in nirvana.

8. Everything is real and is not real,

Both real and not real,

Neither real nor not real.

This is Lord Buddha’s teaching.

This is the positive tetralemma regarding existence. Everything
is conventionally real. Everything is ultimately unreal (that is, not
unreal in just any sense, but unreal when seen from the ultimate
standpoint). Everything has both characteristics — that is, every-
thing is both conventionally real and ultimately unreal. Nothing is
ultimately real or completely nonexistent. That is, everything is
neither real in one sense nor not-real in another sense. 93 * 94

93. My reading contrasts with that of Inada (1970, p. 113), who argues that
here Nagarjuna intends to deny these four possibilities. See also Sprung (1979)
and Wood (1994) for interpretations that fail to appreciate completely the posi-
tive tetralemma and its role in Nagarjuna’s enterprise (though to be sure Wood
takes note of the positive mood of this instance). Ruegg (1977) interprets this
verse as suggesting gradations of progressively more sophisticated teachings —
progressing from a mundane analysis of existence to a teaching of emptiness, to
a teaching of their compatibility, to an indication of the inability of predication.
Ng (1993), pp. 93-97, agrees. While such a purport would be something with

Examination of Self and Entities 25 1

Interestingly, the tetralemma can also be asserted in a negative
form with some of the same force: Nothing is real (ultimately).
Nothing is not-real (everything has a kind of reality). Nothing is
both real and not-real (in the same sense— that would be contradic-
tory). Nothing is neither real nor not-real (the law of the excluded
middle). Both forms of the tetralemma are found in this text. See
XXII: ll . 95 ’ 96

9. Not dependent on another, peaceful and
Not fabricated by mental fabrication,

Not thought, without distinctions,

That is the character of real ity (that-ness).

That is, independent of conceptual imputation there are no ob-
jects, no identities, and so, no distinctions. But of course, as Kant
would agree, there is no way that we can think such a reality.

which Nagarjuna would agree, it seems out of place in this discussion. Wood, on
the other hand, takes this verse to indicate that straightforward contradictions
(existence and nonexistence) follow from the supposition that anything exists at
all, in any way, and, hence, to form part of a nihilistic analysis. While such a
reading would make sense if one only attended to this chapter, taken in the
context of the work as a whole, and especially Chapter XXIV, that nihilistic
reading is very hard to sustain.

94. That is, of course, everything that is conventionally real in the first place.

Santa Claus is not among the objects of analysis here.

95. It is interesting to note — and we will return to this point in XXII below—
that Nagarjuna typically resorts to positive forms of the tetralemma when emphasiz-
ing claims about conventional phenomena and to negative forms when emphasizing
the impossibility of the literal assertion of ultimate truths. Ng (1993), pp. 99-105,
notices this point as well.

96. Here I take issue with philosophers such as Sprung (1979), who argue that
the tetralemma is insignificant for Madhyamika thought. Indeed, as I indicate in
several places in this commentary, it is, both in its positive and negative moods,
often an indispensable analytic tool. It is indeed “used as a means of investigation
(p. 7) here and elsewhere in the text. And as I argue here and below it is often quite
useful. Sprung may be led to this conclusion by the fact that he overlooks the
contrast between positive and negative tetralemmas, focusing exclusively on the
latter. Moreover, he confuses its logical structure. See Ruegg (1977) and Matilal
(1977) for divergent but each interesting and helpful investigations into the struc-
ture of the tetralemma, as well as Wood (1994) for what I regard as a serious
misunderstanding of the tetralemma and of its deployment in Madhyamika philoso-
phy (see esp. pp. 64-77).

252

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Nonetheless, Nagarjuna argues (and Kant still agrees), we must
see that that is the ultimate truth about things, though it might in
its nature be inexpressible and inconceivable . 97

10. Whatever comes into being dependent on another

Is not identical to that thing.

Nor is it different from it.

Therefore it is neither nonexistent in time nor permanent.

Here Nagarjuna recapitulates a brief analysis of what it is for a
phenomenon to be dependently arisen. But in the context of the
deeper understanding of emptiness and of the relation between the
ultimate and the conventional developed in this chapter, a deeper
reading of this verse is in order: Our attention is called to the fact
that the analysis of dependency developed here — and conse-
quently of the conventional reality and ultimate nonexistence of
the dependent — is at the same time a correct conventional charac-
terization of the nature of phenomena and an ostention of the fact

97. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in oral remarks (Columbia University, 1994),
notes that “whenever we examine physical, mental, or abstract entities, we find as a
result of a reductive analysis nothing but their unfindability. So you can't really
speak coherently of identity or of entities. This is the fundamental teaching of
Madhyamika.” See also Nagao (1989), pp. 67-68, for useful remarks on XVIII: 7-
9. But this interpretation can be carried too far, with the consequence that
Nagarjuna is seen as a thoroughgoing Kantian absolutist regarding the ultimate
truth. Murti (1985) endorses just such a view:

Origination, decay, etc . . . are imagined by the uninformed; they are specula-
tions indulged in by the ignorant. The real is utterly devoid ( iunya ) of these
and other conceptual constructions; it is transcendent to thought and can be
realised only in nondual knowledge — prajnd or Intuition, which is the Abso-
lute itself. . . . The distinction between two truths, Paramartha and Samvrti , is
emphasised. . . .

... It as generally accepted [by Nagarjuna and his followers] that the real is
Absolute, at once Transcendent of Empirical Determinations and Immanent [in]
Phenomena as the innermost essence, (p. xi [capitalization in original])

Kalupahana (1986) adopts another extreme reading, arguing that this verse in
fact says nothing about the character of reality, but rather “the means by which a
conception of truth is arrived at.” He argues that it merely admonishes one to be
independent in one’s thinking, unbiased and calm in one’s philosophical inquiry. It
is hard to see how this reading could be justified apart from a strong antecedent
commitment to seeing Nagarjuna as a pragmatist.

Examination of Self and Entities

253

that it is only a conventional designation of a nature that must
remain uncharacterizable . 98

11. By the buddhas, patrons of the world,

This immortal truth is taught:

Without identity, without distinction;

Not non-existent in time, not permanent.

That is, this doctrine itself is also empty. It is conventionally
real, ultimately nonexistent, dependent, impermanent, and has a
nature in itself that can never be characterized. The final verse is
an admonishment to meditate seriously on this argument. For by
understanding clearly the nature of the self and of the entities to
which it is related, Nagarjuna believes that one can attain bud-
dhahood. That is why he emphasizes that with a correct view, even
without a teacher or a buddha to instruct one, a patient meditator
can attain his/her own awakening.

12. When the fully enlightened ones do not appear,

And when the disciples have disappeared,

The wisdom of the self-enlightened ones

Will arise completely without a teacher.

98. Kalupahana (1986) reads these final verses very differently, as having noth-
ing to do with the ultimate truth, but rather as suggesting that freedom from
suffering “does not necessarily mean the absence of a subject-object discrimination.
It means the absence of any discrimination based upon one’s likes and dislikes,
one’s obsessions” (p. 59). It is, however, very hard to square this reading of XVIII:
10, 11 with any defensible reading of XVIII: 8,9.

Chapter XIX

Examination of Time

Another response to the attack on the reality of action and its conse-
quences might to be argue that, nonetheless, the time in which
action and its consequences are realized must be real. Nagarjuna in
this chapter argues that time cannot be conceived of as an entity
existing independently of temporal phenomena, but must itself be
regarded as a set of relations among them. His arguments are closely
akin to those of Zeno, Sextus, and McTaggart.

1. If the present and the future
Depend on the past,

Then the present and the future
Would have existed in the past.

Nagarjuna’s method is to divide time into the past, the present,
and the future and then to argue that none of these can be said to
inherently exist. In these first two verses, he considers one horn of
an implicit dilemma: The present and the future either depend
upon the past or they do not. In these two verses he considers the
possibility that they do depend upon the past. But if they depend
upon it in any sense that could plausibly guarantee their inherent
existence, they must somehow emerge from it as a basis. If so, he
argues, they must have existed in the past. For if they did not, then
we would have the situation where when the time on which they

Examination of Time

255

ostensibly depend exists they do not exist, or a situation where at
the time they exist that on which they ostensibly depend does not
exist. We would then either have the situation in which the ostensi-
bly dependent exists, but in the absence of that on which it de-
pends, or in which the necessary condition exists, but without that
of which it is the condition.

This raises two difficulties, one general and one specific to the
case at hand: First, by the arguments developed concerning the
temporal relations between causes and their effects in Chapters I
and VII, we have two incoherent situations from the standpoint of
anyone who considers the causal relation or its relata to be inher-
ently existent. There must be a real relation between the cause and
the effect in which the effect is contained potentially in the cause,
and this would unfortunately entail the past existence of the pres-
ent and the future. But second, there is a little regress to be devel-
oped. For if the present and the future depend upon the past, they
must succeed or be simultaneous with it. But they must succeed or
be simultaneous with it in time. That requires a super- time in
which the parts of time are related, and so on, ad infinitum.

2. If the present and the future
Did not exist there,

How could the present and the future
Be dependent upon it?

That is, if we deny that the present and the future existed poten-
tially in the past and were somehow coexistent with it, there is no
way to understand the mechanics of the dependency relation. By
the time the present comes around, the past isn’t around to give
rise to it. And when the past was around, the present didn’t occur.

3. If they are not dependent upon the past,

Neither of the two would be established.

Therefore neither the present

Nor the future would exist.

If, on the other hand, one argued that the parts of time are
independent, there would be no sense in which they would be

256

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

determinately ordered and in which they would be part of the same
time. Time is by definition an ordering of events in which moments
stand in determinate relations to one another, in virtue of which
the location of any moment depends on the location of all of the
others. The present is the present only because it is poised within
the past and the future. If it were not, it would not be the present.
So either the present is in the past, in which case it is nonexistent,
or it is independent of the past and the future, in which case it is
nonexistent.

4. By the same method,

The other two divisions — past and future,

Upper, lower, middle, etc.,

Unity, etc., should be understood.

That is, we can generalize this argument about the dependency
of the future and present, whose narrow purpose is to demonstrate
the nonexistence of the present, to demonstrate the nonexistence
of the past and future as inherently existent entities. Moreover,
Nagarjuna notes, this argument applies, mutatis mutandis, to spa-
tial relations.

5. A nonstatic time is not grasped.

Nothing one could grasp as

Stationary time exists.

If time is not grasped, how is it known?

This is a second destructive dilemma: Time, if it exists as an
entity, is either stationary or changing. To say that it is changing is
incoherent; we would need to posit a super-time in which that
change occurs. But to say that it is static is incoherent as well. That
suggests that past, present, and future coexist. So there is no coher-
ent conception of time as an entity.

6. If time depends on an entity,

Then without an entity how could time exist?

There is no existent entity.

So how can time exist?

Examination of Time

257

Finally, Nagarjuna argues, we cannot suppose that time exists as.
one entity dependent on some other as its ground if we want time
to exist inherently. This is because, in the previous arguments in
the text, we have already argued that none of the entities that exist
in time are inherently existent. So none would form a suitable
ontological basis for an inherently existent time.

But this final verse is double-edged, and its positive reading
contains Nagarjuna’s positive account of the nature of time.
Nagarjuna points out that with no entities to be temporally related,
there is no time. That is, the only mode of existence that time has is
as a set of relations among empirical phenomena. Apart from
those phenomena and those relations, there is no time." But that
means that, given the lack of inherent existence of phenomena,
there can be no inherent existence of time. Time is thus merely a
dependent set of relations, not an entity in its own right, and
certainly not the inherently existent vessel of existence it might
appear to be.

99. This insight is foundational for Dogen’s later analysis of Uji, or being-time.

Chapter XX

Examination of Combination

This chapter examines the possibility that, while no effect could be
inherently dependent upon any single cause, it might be that the
correct understanding of dependent arising and the thoroughgoing
interdependence of phenomena that Nagarjuna urges involves the
inherent dependence of any phenomenon on the combination of
all of its conditions. Thus, while every phenomenon would, as
Nagarjuna has been arguing, be completely dependent on all oth-
ers, this dependence itself would be inherently existent. Much of
the argument is a reprise of arguments that we have seen already,
particularly in Chapters I and VII. But the temporal analysis of
Chapter XIX is also in evidence.

1. If, arising from the combination of
Causes and conditions,

The effect is in the combination,

How could it arise from the combination?

2. If, arising from the combination of
Causes and conditions,

The effect is not in the combination,

How could it arise from the combination?

In the opening verses, Nagarjuna sets up the destructive di-
lemma that frames the first part of this chapter: Either the effect is

Examination of Combination

259

already present in the combination on which it is supposed by the
reificationist to inherently depend or it is not. If it is, he will argue,
there is no sense in which it really arises from them at all. If not, on
the other hand, he will argue that there is no sense in which what-
ever dependence there is could be inherent dependence. Nagar-
juna alternates in the subsequent verses between these alterna-
tives, developing a number of difficulties for each.

3. If the effect is in the combination
Of causes and conditions,

Then it should be grasped in the combination.

But it is not grasped in the combination.

First, suppose that the effect already exists somehow in the cojn-
bination of phenomena on which it depends. Then in grasping —
that is, in conceiving or perceiving — that collection, we should,
ipso facto, grasp the effect. But we do not. Consider the set of
conditions of a match lighting. There is the presence of sulphur,
friction, oxygen, and so forth. But neither in virtue of conceiving
of these things nor in virtue of seeing them do we see fire.

4. If the effect is not in the combination
Of causes and conditions,

Then actual causes and conditions
Would be like noncauses and nonconditions.

On the other hand, Nagarjuna argues, if the proponent of inher-
ently existent dependence argues that the effect is not present in
the combination, he would have to say that there is no difference
between actual conditions of an effect and an arbitrary collection
of phenomena with no relation at all to it. Because the very point
of this analysis is to explain how a particular set of conditions
determines an effect. For Nagarjuna, as we should be able to see
by recalling his treatment of dependent origination and the rela-
tion between conditions and their effects in Chapter I, this is no
problem: There is simply no general metaphysical answer to such a
question for a Madhyamika philosopher. A collection of conditions
determines its effect simply because when those conditions are

260

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

present, that effect arises. That fact may in turn be empirically
explicable by other regularities. But there is no independent foun-
dation for the network of regularities itself. However, for the sub-
stantialist there must be some analysis of the collection of condi-
tions itself that answers the question regarding how that collection
has the power to produce that effect. And the answer the opponent
proposes is that it does so because the effect is inherently present
in some sense in that collection.

5. If the cause, in having its effect,

Ceased to have its causal status,

There would be two kinds of cause:

With and without causal status.

At this point, Nagarjuna turns to the temporal relation between
the effect, the cause, and the combination of conditions that to-
gether with the primary cause of the effect bring about the effect.
The position that he is worrying about is this: Effects depend upon
particular causes, but those causes need the cooperation of support-
ing conditions in order to be efficacious. The familiar example in
this context is that of the seed and the sprout. The seed, according
to the proponent of such a position, causes the sprout, but only if
there is soil, water, air, and so forth, to support it. Nagarjuna then
complains that on this view the word “cause” is being used equivo-
cally: In one sense it is used to refer to things — the primary
causes — that really don’t cause anything. In the other sense, it is
used to refer to those that really have causal status — namely, the
entire assemblage of conditions that are necessary and sufficient
for the arising of the effect.

6. If the cause, not yet having
Produced its effect, ceased,

Then having arisen from a ceased cause,

The effect would be without a cause.

But, he urges, if we want to assert that the cause, instead of
changing from a cause to a noncause, simply ceases at the moment
when it produces its effect, we still have a problem. Because by the

Examination of Combination

261

time the effect emerges, the cause will have vanished, and the
effect will then have emerged without a cause and so will be a
causeless effect.

7. If the effect were to arise
Simultaneously with the collection,

Then the produced and the producer
Would arise simultaneously.

Tliming now to the entire collection as determinative of the
effect, Nagarjuna points out that the effect cannot be simultaneous
with the occurrence of a collection of its conditions for all of the
reasons that he has advanced previously against the simultaneity of
causes and their effects.

8. If the effect were to arise
Prior to the combination,

Then, without causes and conditions,

The effect would arise causelessly.

But neither, of course, can the effect arise before the conditions
are met since the effect would then arise spontaneously, and this
possibility has been refuted earlier.

9. If, the cause having ceased, the effect

Were a complete transformation of the cause,

Then a previously arisen cause
Would arise again.

Nagarjuna now responds to the following possible reply: The
effect in question is not an entity distinct from the cause or the
collection of conditions that serve as its ground. Therefore these
questions about the temporal relations between events involving
distinct entities do not arise. The sprout is not distinct from the
seed, but is merely a complete transformation of it. But, Nagar-
juna argues, it is also not possible to characterize the effect as a
simple change of nature of a single entity that was the cause before
the transformation. For then we would have to say that the cause

262

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

remains in existence after the effect arises and so would have to
keep producing the same effect over and over again.

TTiis argument might seem not to have much bite. After all, one
might think, the alternative being proposed seems quite like
Nagarjuna’s own view that we should not think of causes and their
effects as distinct entities. But this would be wrong. This argument
succeeds because the opponent denies the distinctness in entity
between cause and effect by positing an identity in essence and by
appealing to that essence to explain the causal potential of the
cause. If the essence of the entity is what determines its causal
potential, then if that essence remains, the potential should remain
as well. If the essence does not remain, then the language of trans-
formation must be abandoned. If the essence remains, and the
language of transformation is retained at an accidental level, the
claim that there is an essential causal principle must be rejected.

10. How can a cause, having ceased and dissolved,

Give rise to a produced effect?

How can a cause joined with its effect produce it
If they persist together?

Nagarjuna now returns to the temporal trilemma. As he has
argued before, just as a cause cannot follow or be simultaneous
with its effect, the precedence of cause over effect is problematic as
well. For when there is a cause, there is no effect. When there is an
effect, there is no cause. And if we appeal to temporal overlap, we
inherit all of the problems with precedence, simultaneity, and col-
lections. In introducing the idea of a cause being “joined” with its
effect (' brel-ba ), Nagarjuna is introducing a putative causal link
into the discussion. One who proposes simultaneity or temporal
overlap of cause with effect might be doing so in order to make
possible such a link. But Nagarjuna here claims that positing that
link does not overcome the temporal difficulties he has presented.

In XX: 11-15, Nagarjuna summarizes the results of these argu-
ments. Causes, whether single or composite, cannot precede, coin-
cide with, or follow their effects; causes cannot produce their ef-
fects in isolation, nor can collections of causes inherently produce
their effects:

Examination of Combination

263

1 1 . Moreover, if not joined with its cause,

What effect can be made to arise?

Neither seen nor unseen by causes
Are effects produced.

Here Nagarjuna returns to his critique of the idea of a causal
nexus. He points out that though that idea has been shown to be
incoherent, it is the only way that one can make sense of a real
causal link or of inherently existent production. So in its absence,
we cannot make sense of the production of an effect by its cause.
In the last two lines, Nagarjuna makes use of the strange metaphor
of a cause seeing its effect to denote this link ( thongs-ba ). 100 This is
clearly a metaphor for this link, suggesting that whether it is forged
by contiguity or by some other means at a distance, it will be
explanatorily impotent.

12. There is never a simultaneous connection
Of a past effect

With a past, a nonarisen,

Or an arisen cause.

13. There is never a simultaneous connection
Of a an arisen effect

With a past, a nonarisen,

Or an arisen cause.

14. There is never a simultaneous connection
Of a nonarisen effect

With a past, a nonarisen,

Or an arisen cause.

15. Without connecting,

How can a cause produce an effect?

Where there is connection,

How can a cause produce an effect?

At this point, Nagarjuna turns directly to the connection between
emptiness and the dependence of effects on collections of condi-

100. Inada, with some philosophical justification, translates this as “projected.”
But 1 see little lexical merit in that choice.

264

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

tions. The opponent now asks how a cause or collection of causes
that does not contain the effect in any way can produce that effect:

16. If the cause is empty of an effect,

How can it produce an effect?

If the cause is not empty of an effect,

How can it produce an effect?

Nagarjuna, echoing the argument of Chapter I, replies that only
if cause and effect are empty can production be understood. The
next verse explains this in more detail:

17. A nonempty effect does not arise.

The nonempty would not cease.

This nonempty would be

The nonceased and the nonarisen.

If the effect were nonempty, as the opponent presupposes in
wondering how the effect could be produced from empty causes,
then since the inherently existent depends on nothing, the effect
would be unproduced and would never cease. But there are no
such things. So the putative problem case, the nonempty effect of
empty causes, is not even possible.

18. How can the empty arise?

How can the empty cease?

The empty will hence also

Be the nonceased and nonarisen.

Nagarjuna emphasizes here the double edge of the ontology of
emptiness. Even though it is in virtue of the fact that conventional
entities are constantly arising and ceasing that they are empty, their
emptiness entails that they do not, from the ultimate standpoint,
arise, cease, or abide at all. This is an eloquent statement of the
interpenetration of the ultimate and the conventional truths: The
very ground on the basis of which emptiness is asserted is denied
reality through the understanding of emptiness itself. The empti-
ness of phenomena is, after all, asserted on the basis of their
momentary impermanence. But that impermanence and the very

Examination of Combination

265

existence of the impermanent objects asserted to be empty is not
even present from the ultimate standpoint. Yet that, rather than
constituting a self-refutation, constitutes a self-confirmation. For if
anything were apparent from the ultimate standpoint, that phe-
nomenon would be nonempty. It is the absence of any such
phenomenon — not its presence — that confirms the analysis and
that prevents it from lapsing into a view, in the pernicious sense. 101

19. For cause and effect to be identical
Is not tenable.

For cause and effect to be different
Is not tenable.

Nagarjuna here returns to the business of mobilizing destructive
dilemmas against the view that any dependence of effects on collo-
cations of conditions could be inherently existent. The argument in
XX: 20 is based on the dichotomy of identity or difference of cause
and effect and is drawn from Chapter I:

20. If cause and effect were identical,

Produced and producer would be identical.

If cause and effect were different,

Cause and noncause would be alike.

For the relation at issue in this chapter to be inherently existent,
the collection of conditions would have either to be identical in
nature or different in nature from the effect. If identical, we would
have the absurd consequence that the effect was self-caused. But if
the effect is totally different in essence, we have no explanation of
how that collection of conditions produced that effect.

21. If an effect had entitihood,

What could have caused it to arise?

If an effect had no entitihood,

What could have caused it to arise?

This attack On the inherent status of the relation between condi-
tions and effects focuses on arising itself. The effect must either

101. See the discussion of XXVII: 30 for more on this point.

266

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

have entitihood or not. If it does, its being caused to arise is self-
contradictory. If not, though, from the ultimate standpoint it does
not arise. It would follow from either that there is no inherently
existent arising and, so, no inherent production from a collection
of conditions. The next verse makes this same point from the side
of the collection. If the effect produced is not inherently produced,
the collection does not inherently produce it. If not, it is not an
inherently productive collection:

22. If something is not producing an effect,

It is not tenable to attribute causality.

If it is not tenable to attribute causality,

Then of what will the effect be?

23. If the combination

Of causes and conditions
Is not self-produced.

How does it produce an effect?

The ground of an inherently existent relation of production must
be inherently existent. But then it could depend on nothing else. It
would have to be self-produced. But this is not claimed for the
collection of conditions or the relation between them and the effect
by the opponent here. It couldn’t be. For the whole point of mov-
ing to a collection is to avoid the problems of production from a
single cause. But collections depend upon their parts and upon the
causes of those parts. So no such collection can be self-produced.
So, while Nagarjuna can certainly grant that effects are dependent
upon collections of conditions, it cannot be that those collections
or that dependence exist inherently.

24. Therefore, not made by combination,

And not without a combination can the effect arise.

If there is no effect,

Where can there be a combination of conditions?

Combinations of conditions, just like individual conditions and
just like their effects, can only be conceived of as empty of inher-
ent existence.

Chapter XXI

Examination of Becoming
and Destruction

In this chapter, Nagarjuna examines the phenomenon of momen-
tary impermanence. At this point in the dialectic, one might
suggest that since the emptiness of phenomena derives directly
from their decomposition into momentary time-slices and from
the fact that they are constantly coming into existence and being
destroyed, that process of momentary arising and destruction it-
self ought to be real in the strong sense. Nagarjuna, by way of
Completing the discussion of the nature of conventional phenom-
ena, demonstrates the emptiness of even arising and destruction
themselves as a prelude to the final section of the text, that
discussing the nature of the ultimate and its relation to conven-
tional reality.

1. Destruction does not occur without becoming.

It does not occur together with it.

Becoming does not occur without destruction.

It does not occur together with it.

This first verse announces the final stage in the argument to be
developed. Nagarjuna will show that destruction and becoming are
both mutually incompatible and that they are mutually entailing. It

268

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

will then follow that if they are inherently existent, they have
contradictory properties.

2. How could there be destruction
Without becoming?

How could there be death without birth?

There is no destruction without becoming.

Nagarjuna argues that, absent something coming into being,
there is no sense in which it can be destroyed. So destruction
presupposes becoming.

3. How could destruction and becoming
Occur simultaneously?

Death and birth

Do not occur simultaneously.

But they cannot exist simultaneously. For then the same entity
would have contradictory properties.

4. How could there be becoming
Without destruction?

For impermanence
Is never absent from entities.

Since all phenomena are impermanent, as has been forcefully
argued in earlier chapters, anything that comes into existence
passes out of existence.

5. How could destruction

And becoming occur simultaneously?

Just as birth and death
Do not occur simultaneously.

6. How, when things cannot
Be established as existing,

With, or apart from one another,

Can they be established at all?

Examination of Becoming and Destruction 269

This is the argument to this stage: Becoming and destruction are
mutually contradictory. So they cannot be properties of the same
thing at the same time. But everything that is coming into existence
is at a stage in a process that culminates in its destruction. So
everything that is becoming is at the same time being destroyed.
Everything that is being destroyed is in a later stage of a process
that earlier resulted in its coming into existence and, indeed, is
coming to exist in some other form. So everything that is being
destroyed is also becoming. So becoming and destruction cannot
coexist, but cannot exist apart. Hence they cannot exist indepen-
dently at all.

7. There is no becoming of the disappeared.

There is no becoming of the nondisappeared.

There is no destruction of the disappeared.

There is no destruction of the nondisappeared.

This verse offers an epigrammatic summary of the previous argu-
ment: All phenomena, when analyzed closely, resolve into ephem-
eral moments, constantly disappearing to be succeeded by later
stages of what are conventionally identified as the same objects. So
everything that has ever existed has disappeared. Such a thing
cannot be coming into existence. But no nondisappeared thing
ever comes into existence. For as soon as it exists, it disappears.
Similarly such things cannot be in the process of destruction. But
nothing that is not ephemeral is destroyed either. Given this
ephemeral nature of phenomena, establishing becoming and de-
struction as distinct, independent processes is impossible. This
claim is made directly in XXI: 8:

8. When no entities exist,

There is no becoming or destruction.

Without becoming and destruction,

There are no existent entities.

In the next verse, Nagarjuna connects this point directly to
emptiness and to inherent existence, pointing out both that empti-
ness precludes the inherent establishment of becoming and de-

270

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

struction and that positing inherently existent phenomena would
do no better:

9. It is not tenable for the empty
To become or to be destroyed.

It is not tenable for the nonempty
To become or to be destroyed.

The empty cannot come to be or be destroyed simply because
there is no basis for the predication. With no entities, there is
nothing to be brought into existence or to be destroyed. But if we
posit nonempty phenomena, their independence and consequent
permanence preclude their coming to be or destruction.

10. It is not tenable

That destruction and becoming are identical.

It is not tenable

That destruction and becoming are different.

They cannot be identical because they are contradictory predi-
cates. But every destruction is a coming to be and vice versa.
Hence when conceived of inherently, they can be neither identical
nor different; when conceived of inherently, they cannot exist:

11 . If you think you see both
Destruction and becoming,

Then you see destruction and becoming
Through impaired vision.

In the next two verses, Nagarjuna addresses coming to be. He
points out that if it is conceived of as truly existent then it must
satisfy at least one of the alternatives represented in each of the
following two tetralemmas. But it cannot:

12. An entity does not arise from an entity.

An entity does not arise from a nonentity.

A nonentity does not arise from a nonentity.

A nonentity does not arise from an entity.

Examination of Becoming and Destruction

271

The first alternative is precluded because inherently existent and
distinct phenomena, Nagarjuna has argued, cannot be related de-
pendently. The second is precluded because that would involve
production from nothing. The third would fail to count as inher-
ently existent production, and from the standpoint of one who
posits inherent existence as a guarantor of reality, would only
amount to the production of the imaginary in any case. The final
alternative again would not amount to real production of anything.

13. An entity does not arise from itself.

It is not arisen from another.

It is not arisen from itself and another.

How can it be arisen?

This verse simply recapitulates the argument of Chapter I in the
service of the conclusion that arising cannot be conceived of as an
independent phenomenon. Nagarjuna now draws more general
conclusions regarding the implication of the view that existence
amounts to inherent existence for the extreme positions. He devel-
ops in the next two verses a nice reductio ad absurdum:

14. If one accepts the existence of entities,

Permanence and the view of complete nonexistence follow.

For these entities

Must be both permanent and impermanent.

If one thinks that any existent entity must exist inherently, then
one is forced simultaneously to embrace the extremes of nihilism
and reification. One must reify because any existent must be
treated as inherently existent and hence permanent. But upon
observing the impermanence of phenomena, one will be driven to
nihilism since their impermanence would entail their lack of inher-
ent existence and hence their complete nonexistence. An oppo-
nent, however, can be imagined to reply as follows:

15. If one accepts the existence of entities

Nonexistence and permanence will not follow.

Cyclic existence is the continuous

Becoming and destruction of causes and effects.

272

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

If Nagarjuna is correct, this objection goes, there is a constant
becoming and destruction of causally related phenomena. This,
after all, is the heart of the Madhyamika analysis of phenomenal
reality. But if that is so, these phenomena that are becoming and
being destroyed must exist. Otherwise, what comes into and
passes out of existence? It is these entities, this opponent argues,
that we must posit. And from positing such entities, neither their
complete nonexistence nor their permanence follows. For they
are by definition impermanently existent. Nagarjuna replies in
the next verse:

16. If cyclic existence is the continuous

Becoming and destruction of causes and effects.

Then from the nonarising of the destroyed
Follows the nonexistence of cause.

Given the pervasiveness of dependent arising, the impermanence
of all causes and effects, and the emptiness of the relation of depen-
dence itself, causes and effects themselves must be regarded as
noninherently existent. For the person who equates existence with
inherent existence, this forces the denial of the very becoming and
destruction he has posited as the only inherently existent phenom-
ena. The point against the objection asserted in the previous verse is
this: The very fact that constant becoming and destruction character-
izes reality entails that at no point can anything be identified as an
entity in the robust sense — -a thing with a nature that persists over
time. The very phenomena the opponent wants to posit as existent
in order to make sense of the series of becoming and destruction are ,
when that series is taken seriously, themselves nonexistent. But the
kind of full existence the opponent feels compelled to posit is in any
case not only impossible given this situation, but unnecessary as
well. Nagarjuna now turns to the soteriological implications of this
view of becoming, destruction, and entitihood:

17. If entities exist with entitihood,

Then their nonexistence would make no sense.

But at the time of nirvana,

Cyclic existence ceases completely, having been pacified.

Examination of Becoming and Destruction 273

If we thought that anything had inherent existence — whether
entities, processes, or arising and its determinants — that could not
possibly cease in nirvana. So this view would render Buddhist
soteriology incoherent and is therefore, since it purports to be a
view of the nature of cyclic existence by contrast with nirvana,
untenable.

The next three verses sum up the results of this investigation
regarding the possibility of conceiving of empirical reality as consist-
ing of a series of momentary phenomena, each one of which gives
rise to the next through an inherently real nexus of destruction and
becoming. The structure of the argument is by now familiar:

18. If the final one has ceased,

The existence of a first one makes no sense.

If the final one has not ceased,

The existence of a first one makes no sense.

If the momentary phenomenon prior to a present momentary
phenomenon has ceased prior to the arising of the present one,
there is no basis for that arising. But if it has not ceased, then its
destruction cannot be an occasion for the arising of the subsequent
event. So the prior momentary phenomenon can neither have
ceased nor not ceased.

19. If when the final one was ceasing,

Then the first was arising,

The one ceasing would be one.

The one arising would be another.

That is, if we say that the cessation of the previous momentary
phenomenon is simultaneous with the arising of its successor, then
being simultaneous but distinct, the two phenomena are separable
and hence independent. If so, there is no basis for positing any
connection between them. This is yet another application of the
principle of the independence of separable phenomena.

20. If, absurdly, the one arising

And the one ceasing were the same,

Then whoever is dying with the aggregates
Is also arising.

274

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Finally, we don’t want to identify arising and ceasing, claiming
that they are the same phenomenon, since they are by definition
contraries. It would be tantamount, Nagarjuna claims, to saying
that a person who is dying is simultaneously being born. From the
standpoint of one who wants to posit arising and destruction as the
two complementary inherently existent bases of cyclic existence, it
would hardly do to say that they are one and the same thing.

21. Since the series of cyclic existence is not evident

In the three times,

If it is not in the three times,

How could there be a series of cyclic existence?

And finally, if we cannot conceive of the domain of conventional
phenomena as inherently existent in time, there is no sense in
suggesting that it has some kind of transtemporal existence. The
object of analysis here is the conventional world we inhabit. So,
Nagarjuna concludes, we cannot, upon analysis, resolve the do-
main of conventional phenomena into a series of constantly aris-
ing, constantly ceasing, yet individually inherently existent momen-
tary phenomena, connected to one another and characterized by
inherently real arising and ceasing. As this target ontology was
among the subtlest of the pre-Madhyamika views of the nature of
reality, dependent arising, and impermanence (and is indeed not
by any means a relic within Theravada Buddhism) and as it repre-
sents a plausible interpretation of fundamental Buddhist tenets,
this refutation is an appropriate close to the portion of the text
concerned directly with the analysis of the fundamental structure
of conventional reality. With this in hand, Nagarjuna turns in the
final six chapters to topics concerned with the nature of ultimate
reality: buddhahood, prominent incorrect views about the ulti-
mate, the Four Noble Truths and emptiness, nirvana, and the
twelve limbs of dependent origination.

Chapter XXII

Examination of the Tathagata

This is the first of the final set of chapters in the text, all of which
deal directly with topics concerning the ultimate truth and its rela-
tion to the conventional. The doctrine of the two truths, central to
all Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, is most explicitly enunciated in
Chapter XXIV. But it is present as a pervasive theme in the text.
There is a conventional world of dependently arisen objects with
properties, of selves and their properties and relations. And in that
world there is conventional truth: Snow is white. Grass is green.
Individual humans are distinct from one another and from their
material possessions. But there is also an ultimate truth about this
world: It is empty (of inherent existence). None of these objects or
persons exists from its own side (independently of convention).
From the ultimate point of view there are no individual objects or
relations between them. Just how these two truths are connected,
and how we are to understand them simultaneously, is the central
problem of Madhyamika epistemology and metaphysics, and from
the standpoint of Madhyamika, a satisfactory solution is essential
for Buddhist soteriological practice and ethics as well.

But discourse about the ultimate is perilous in a number of ways.
First, and most obviously, there is the ever-present danger of talk-
ing sheer nonsense. For the ultimate truth is, in some sense, ineffa-
ble in that all words and their referents , are by definition conven-
tional. The dualities generated by the use of terms that denote

276

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

individuals or classes as distinct from others or from their comple-
ments are unavoidable in discourse and nonexistent in the ulti-
mate. So one must be very careful to kick away all ladders
promptly. At the same time, there are things that one can say
without lapsing into nonsense, by way of ostention, even from the
bottom rungs.

But the other grave danger is this: By distinguishing the conven-
tional from the ultimate, it is tempting to disparage the former in
contrast to the latter, developing a sort of theory of one truth and
one falsehood. This is done if one reifies the entities associated
with the ultimate, such as emptiness or impermanence, or the Four
Noble Truths, or the Buddha. Then one treats these as real, intrin-
sically existent phenomena. The conventional then becomes the
world of illusion. It is to combat this tendency to treat the conven-
tional world as illusory through treating such apparently transcen-
dent entities as inherently existent that Nagarjuna develops these
final chapters. Perhaps the most obvious candidate for reification
in a Buddhist context is the Buddha himself, and that is where
Nagarjuna begins:

1 . Neither the aggregates, nor different from the aggregates,

The aggregates are not in him, nor is he in the aggregates.

The Tathagata does not possess the aggregates.

What is the Tathagata? 102

This form of analytic demonstration of the nonexistence of the
self through an analysis of its possible relationship to the aggre-
gates, often referred to as the “fivefold analysis,” is developed with
great elegance by Candrakirti in Madhyamakavatara. Nagarjuna
proposes four of five possible relations the self bears to the aggre-
gates in this first verse, and the fifth is considered in the next two
verses. Here the self in question is the Buddha’s self, but the
analysis is perfectly general as a refutation of any assertion of an
inherently existent personal self. That self cannot be the aggre-

102. ‘‘Tathagata" is an epithet of the Buddha. It is an ambiguous compound,
meaning, depending upon how it is parsed, “thus gone” or “thus come,” hence
indicating either the one gone along the path to enlightenment, or the one come to
teach the Buddhist doctrine.

Examination of the Tathdgata

277

gates for two reasons: First, the self posited is meant to be unitary,
and the aggregates are plural. Second, the aggregates are con-
stantly undergoing change, while the self that is posited is meant to
endure as a single entity.

But the self can’t be different from the aggregates either. For
anything that happens to the aggregates happens to the self, and
vice versa. If I hurt my body, I hurt myself. If you lose your vision,
you become blind. And in the present case, buddhahood is presum-
ably attained by a purification of the aggregates through practice.
If the aggregates were entirely different from the self,, it is not clear
how purifying them would lead the practicioner to buddhahood.

The self cannot stand outside the aggregates as a basis for them,
for if we strip away all of the aggregates, there is nothing left as an
independent support. But nor is the self somehow contained in the
aggregates as a hidden core, and for the same reason. When we
strip away all of the aggregates in thought, nothing remains of the
self.

2. If the Buddha depended on the aggregates,

He would not exist through an essence.

Not existing through an essence,

How could he exist through otherness-essence?

The fifth possibility is that the self, in this case the Buddha’s self,
is distinct from but dependent upon the aggregates. But from the
standpoint of positing an inherently existent Buddha this is unsatis-
factory. For if the Buddha were dependent, he would lack an
essence and would be empty. And the situation can’t be saved by
suggesting that he has an essence through a relation to another
since that presupposes essential difference, which presupposes that
both the Buddha and the aggregates on which he is supposed to
depend have individual essences: This is reinforced in the first two
lines of the next verse:

3. Whatever is dependent on another entity.

Its selfhood is not appropriate.

It is not tenable that what lacks a self
Could be a Tathagata.

276

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

1. Neither the aggregates, nor different from the aggregates,

The aggregates are not in him, nor is he in the aggregates.

The Tathagata does not possess the aggregates.

What is the Tathagata? 102

102. “ Tathagata " is an epithet of the Buddha,. It is an ambiguous compound,
meaning, depending upon how it is parsed, “thus gone” or “thus come, hence
indicating either the one gone along the path to enlightenment, or the one come to
teach the Buddhist doctrine.

Examination of the Tathagata

277

But the self can’t be different from the aggregates either. For
anything that happens to the aggregates happens to the self, and
vice versa. If I hurt my body, I hurt myself. If you lose your vision,
you become blind. And in the present case, buddhahood is presum-
ably attained by a purification of the aggregates through practice.
If the aggregates were entirely different from the self, it is not clear
how purifying them would lead the practicioner to buddhahood.

2. If the Buddha depended on the aggregates,

He would not exist through an essence.

Not existing through an essence,

How could he exist through otherness-essence?

The fifth possibility is that the self, in this case the Buddha’s self,
is distinct from but dependent upon the aggregates. But from the
standpoint of positing an inherently existent Buddha this is unsatis-
factory. For if the Buddha were dependent, he would lack an
essence and would be empty. And the situation can’t be saved by
suggesting that he has an essence through a relation to another
since that presupposes essential difference, which presupposes that
both the Buddha and the aggregates on which he is supposed to
depend have individual essences; This is reinforced in the first two
lines of the next verse:

3. Whatever is dependent on another entity,

Its selfhood is not appropriate.

It is not tenable that what lacks a self
Could be a Tathagata.

278

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

The reifier in the last two lines of this verse and in the next asks
how it is possible that a real Buddha could lack a self. What then
would be the thing that practiced, that became enlightened and
that preached the Dharma?

4. If there is no essence,

How could there be otherness-essence?

Without possessing essence or otherness-essence,

What is the Tathagata?

5. If without depending on the aggregates
There were a Tathagata,

Then now he would be depending on them.

Therefore he would exist through dependence.

That is, on the opponent’s view, even if the Buddha had no
dependence on the aggregates prior to attaining Buddhahood, in
order to act as a Buddha, he must depend upon his consciousness,
perception, body, and so forth. So if we suppose that the Buddha is
now inherently existent and omniscient and compassionate and so
forth, we must assume that he exists through dependence on his
aggregates in some sense.

6. Inasmuch as there is no Tathagata
Dependent upon the aggregates,

How could something that is not dependent
Come to be so?

We already know that the Buddha as a sentient being in
sarpsara, prior to entering nirvana, could not exist dependent on
the aggregates. This is a straightforward consequence of the argu-
ment for the nonexistence of a self distinct from the aggregates and
from the fact that in order to depend upon the aggregates, the self
would need to be distinct from them. And so, Nagarjuna points
out, it would be odd to think that an entity not dependent upon the
aggregates in saipsara would come to be so upon entering nirvana.
It would, of course, be particularly odd for someone defending the
target of this critique. Anyone holding such a position would
hardly be expected to ascribe to the Buddha a more dependent
status in nirvana than in samsara.

Examination of the Tathagata

279

7. There is no appropriation.

There is no appropriator.

Without appropriation

How can there be a Tathagata?

The appropriation here is the appropriation of aggregates as
one’s own. Without it, there can be no sense of individual identity.
Since the opponent is positing the Tathagata as an inherently exis-
tent individual, he must hold him to have his own aggregates.

8. Having been sought in the fivefold way,

What, being neither identical nor different.

Can be thought to be the Tathagata
Through grasping?

But, as we have seen in the first two verses of this chapter, there
is no way that the Buddha can be thought of as inherently existent
in relation to those aggregates. So we can’t divorce the Buddha
from the aggregates. Nor can we understand the Buddha as inher-
ently existing given that he must have aggregates.

9. Whatever grasping there is
Does not exist through essence.

And when something does not exist through itself,

It can never exist through otherness-essence.

So the Buddha does not exist inherently in virtue of his own
essence. Nor does he exist inherently in virtue of some property of
his aggregates or, for that matter, in virtue of anything else that is
other, such as an inherently existent buddha-nature or state of
nirvana.

10. Thus grasping and grasper

Together are empty in every respect.

How can an empty Tathagata
Be known through the empty?

So we must conceive of the Buddha and of all that pertains to
him as empty of inherent existence. But the question then arises:

280

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

What can we say or know of such $n empty Buddha? This is a
fundamental question not only with regard to our knowledge of the
nature of enlightenment, but also with regard to our ability to say
anything coherent about emptiness itself and empty phenomena.

11. “Empty” should not be asserted.

“Nonempty” should not be asserted.

Neither both nor neither should be asserted.

They are only used nominally.

This negative tetralemma is a crucial verse for understanding the
relation between discourse on the conventional level and the under-
standing of emptiness or the ultimate truth. Nagarjuna has been
urging all along that ultimately all things are empty. It would be easy
to interpret him to mean that from the ultimate standpoint, we can
say of phenomena that they are empty. But here he quite deliber-
ately undermines that interpretation, claiming instead that nothing
can be literally said of things from such a standpoint. For ultimately
there is no entity of which emptiness or nonemptiness can be predi-
cated. Nor can we say that things are neither empty nor nonempty.
For that would contradict the fact that from the standpoint of one
using conventional language and cognition, it is correct to character-
ize phenomena as empty. The central claim in this verse is that all
assertion, to the extent that it is true at all, is at best nominally true.
Discourse about the ultimate character of things is not exempt from
this generalization. Predication always requires an entity of which
the predicate can be true; and the emptiness of phenomena guaran-
tees that from the ultimate standpoint, there are no phenomena to
be empty. The language is hence at best only ostensive . 103 The next
verse generalizes this observation:

103. See Padhye (1988), esp. pp. 79-82, for further useful discussion of the
import of this and other negative tetralemmas for Nagarjuna’s philosophy of
language. Padhye correctly emphasizes that Nagarjuna and his Prasangika-
Madhyamika followers reject any kind of Fregean or other realistic semantics that
would require the independent existence of properties, including emptiness or
nonemptiness, or of individuals, as the semantic values of predicates or subject
terms, respectively, arguing for a more pragmatic view of linguistic meaning. Hun-
tington (1989) emphasizes this point as well. I discuss this issue at greater length in
connection with the interpretation of Vigrahavyavartani in Garfield (unpublished).

Examination of the Tathagata

281

12. How can the tetralemma of permanent and impermanent, etc. ,
Be true of the peaceful?

How can the tetralemma of finite, infinite, etc.,

Be true of the peaceful?

13. One who grasps the view that the Tathagata exists,

Having seized the Buddha,

Constructs conceptual fabrications
About one who has achieved nirvana.

Here Nagarjuna returns to the problem of ascribing inherent
existence to the Buddha in the context of thinking about phenom-
ena from the ultimate standpoint. The problem is that, as Nagar-
juna has argued above, the only grounds for asserting the inherent
existence of the Buddha would be on the grounds of the inherent
existence of the aggregates and some view about the relations of
the self to the aggregates. And we have seen that to be untenable.
Moreover, since upon achieving nirvana, on most Buddhist doc-
trine, one ceases to identify a self and aggregates, it would follow
that upon achieving nirvana one would cease to exist. This is dou-
bly problematic. On the one hand, it forces one to see nirvana as
complete annihilation, which doesn’t make it look quite so attrac-
tive. On the other hand, it forces the conclusion that the Buddha is
either not in nirvana (since he exists), which is paradoxical in that
buddhahood should guarantee nirvana, or that he both exists (as a
genuine buddha) and does not exist (in virtue of being in nirvana),
which is contradictory.

14. Since he is by nature empty,

The thought that the Buddha
Exists or does not exist

After nirvana is not appropriate.

Nagarjuna here draws on the results of XXII: 11, 12 to point out
that one can evade all of these paradoxes by simply rejecting the
language of existence and nonexistence when these are read inher-
ently. Empty things exist conventionally; but about their ultimate
status, nothing can be literally said. Of course we can say that the
Buddha is empty and, hence, neither really existent nor completely

282

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

nonexistent. But that, Nagarjuna is arguing in this chapter, can be
only understood in a purely negative sense. The ultimate nature of
things is perhaps shown by it, to use a Wittgensteinian metaphor,
but cannot be said in this language . 104

15. Those who develop mental fabrications with regard to the

Buddha,

Who has gone beyond all fabrications.

As a consequence of those cognitive fabrications.

Fail to see the Tathagata.

To see buddhahood for what it is — to see things as a buddha
sees them — one must see things independently of the categories
that determine an ontology of entities and a dichotomy of exis-
tence and nonexistence. That this is inconceivable to us, for
Nagarjuna, only indicates the fact that we are trapped in conven-
tional reality through the force of the delusion of reification. But
we can, through using the Madhyamika dialectic, come to see the
nature of our predicament, the possibility of transcending it, and
even the nature of that transcendence. That, however, requires
us to acknowledge the merely nominal character of conceptual
imputation.

16. Whatever is the essence of the Tathagata,

That is the essence of the world.

The Tathagata has no essence.

The world is without essence.

This crucial final verse emphasizes again the lack of any funda-
mental nature of entities. Emptiness is the final nature of all
things, from rocks to dogs to human beings to buddhas . 105 This fact
entails, for Mahay ana philosophers, the possibility of any sentient
being to be fundamentally transformed — to attain enlightenment.

104. Nagao (1991) puts this point nicely: 44 . . . [F]or one whose point or depar-
ture is Sunyata , even the claim that all is Siinyata is absurd, for non-assertion or non-
maintenance of a position is the real meaning of forty ata” (p. 42).

105. See also Kalupahana (1986), pp. 310-11, and Ng (1993), pp. 26-28, for a
similar reading.

Examination of the Tathagata

283

But this is so, paradoxically, because ultimately there is no funda-
mental transformation, because there is nothing to transform. In
Chapters XXIV and XXV below, we will see the dramatic conse-
quences of this line of reasoning.

Chapter XXIII
Examination of Errors

This chapter continues the investigation of the relation between
cyclic existence and nirvana by asking whether the fundamental
defilements and the four basic cognitive errors, which according to
orthodox Buddhist doctrine bind us to saipsara, themselves inher-
ently exist and by asking how it is possible to abandon them and
enter nirvana. The fundamental defilements are desire, hatred,
and confusion: the desire for things that are not desirable, the
aversion to things to which it is not reasonable to be averse, confu-
sion about the actual nature of entities. These, according to most
strains of Buddhist philosophy, are the bases of afflicted action,
which in turn leads to further grasping and error. The four basic
errors or erroneous philosophical theses are: (1) There is a perma-
nent self among the five personal aggregates. (2) There is real
happiness in saipsara. (3) The body is pure — that is, that it is a real
source of happiness. (4) There is a permanent self distinct from the
aggregates.

If these defilements and errors were inherent properties of the
self, that might serve as a ground for the inherent existence of
saipsara and its phenomena, to the extent that saipsara is grounded
in these phenomena. Moreover, though, if these defilements and
errors were inherently existent, it is hard to see how nirvana is
possible since it requires their elimination. But on the other hand,
if these defilements do not exist, it is hard to see why there is

Examination of Errors

285

saipsara at all and why we are not already in nirvana. And if they
are merely illusions, why isn’t the distinction between saipsara and
nirvana merely an illusion; why isn’t suffering merely an illusion?
In short, why isn’t illusion merely an illusion? This chapter is de-
voted to answering these fundamental questions in Buddhist
soteriological theory.

1. Desire, hatred, and confusion all
Arise from thought, it is said.

They all depend on

The pleasant, the unpleasant, and errors.

Without reifying entities, a cognitive operation, there is no basis
for desire for those entities, of aversion from them, and no confu-
sion regarding their mode of existence. Seeing things as pleasant or
unpleasant in themselves depends upon confusing our desire or
aversion with respect to them with properties they have in them-
selves. The desire and aversion in turn depend upon our attribut-
ing pleasantness and unpleasantness to the entities. It is a tight and
vicious circle of attribution and emotional reaction, all depending
upon reification.

2. Since whatever depends on the pleasant and the unpleasant
Does not exist through an essence,

The defilements
Do not really exist.

But it follows from this that the defilements, in virtue of depend-
ing on these attributions and upon our relation to pleasant and
unpleasant things, all of which are themselves empty, are empty of
inherent existence. Indeed, they are not only dependently arisen,
but depend upon things or features of those things already shown
to be empty.

3. The self’s existence or nonexistence
Has in no way been established.

Without that, how could the defilements’

Existence or nonexistence be established?

286

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Moreover, the defilements are meant to be defilements of the
self. But the self — the putative basis of those defilements — cannot
exist inherently. So the defilements, being attributes of an empty
phenomenon, cannot be nonempty. The following verse reiterates
that position:

4. The defilements are somebody’s.

But that one has not been established.

Without that possessor,

The defilements are nobody’s.

In the first line, an interlocutor points out that if there are defile-
ments at all there must be somebody whose defilements they are.
Nagarjuna replies that we have already shown that there is no
subject for personal attributes in the many discussions of the rela-
tion between the self and its states previous to this (Chapters III,
IV, VIII, IX, XII, XIII, XVI, XVII, and XVIII). So whatever
analysis of defilement we develop, it will have to be one according
to which they presuppose no defiled individual.

5. View the defilements as you view yourself:

They are not in the defiled in the fivefold way.

View the defiled as you view your self:

It is not in the defilements in the fivefold way.

This verse recalls and applies the fivefold analysis of the self
developed in the previous chapter to the analysis of the defile-
ments and the defiled. They are not identical to the aggregates,
completely different from the aggregates, present as a basis of the
aggregates, contained in the aggregates as a core, or separate from
or dependent upon the aggregates. The arguments concerning the
relation of the self to the aggregates can simply be applied directly
either to the defilements or to the defiled.

6. The pleasant, the unpleasant, and the errors
Do not exist through essence.

Which pleasant, unpleasant, and errors
could the defilements depend upon?

Examination of Errors

287

Nor can we say that the defilements are inherently existent in
virtue of being grounded in inherently existent pleasantness, un-
pleasantness, and error. While it is true that the latter are the basis
of the defilements, they, too, Nagarjuna will argue, are empty.

7. Form, sound, taste, touch.

Smell, and concepts of things: These six
Are thought of as the foundation of
Desire, hatred, and confusion.

8. Form, sound, taste, touch.

Smell, and concepts of things: These six

Should be seen as only like a city of the Gandharvas and

Like a mirage or a dream.

Sensory contact, perception, and cognition are the causal grounds
of the defilements. But as was shown in Chapter III, they are empty
as well.

9. How could the

Pleasant and unpleasant arise
In those that are like an illusory person
And like a reflection?

Since the self and others h&ve been demonstrated to be empty
and pleasantness and unpleasantness must be properties of one,
the other, or both, there can be no inherently existent basis for
pleasantness or unpleasantness. They themselves must also there-
fore be empty.

10. We say that the unpleasant

Is dependent upon the pleasant,

Since without depending on the pleasant there is none.

It follows that the pleasant is not tenable.

11. We say that the pleasant

Is dependent upon the unpleasant.

Without the unpleasant there wouldn’t be any.

It follows that the unpleasant is not tenable.

Moreover, pleasant and unpleasant are mutually dependent.
Nagarjuna here claims that “pleasant” and “unpleasant” are not

288

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

absolute but rather comparative terms and, hence, essentially in-
terdefined. If this is so, then since their referents depend upon
each other for their satisfaction of these descriptions, neither prop*
erty can exist inherently.

12. Where there is no pleasant,

How can there be desire?

Where there is no unpleasant,

How can there be anger?

And since these are the bases for desire and anger, desire and
anger, arising from empty phenomena, must themselves be seen as
empty.

13. If to grasp onto the view

“The impermanent is permanent” were an error,

Since in emptiness there is nothing impermanent,

How could that grasping be an error?

This verse adverts to the first of the four principal errors — that
one of the five aggregates, typically consciousness, is permanent.
The reason that it is held by Buddhists to be an error, of course, is
that all of the aggregates are analyzed as impermanent — hence the
formulation in the second line, whose definite description must be
read de re. But, Nagarjuna argues, since there are no actual imper-
manent phenomena from the ultimate point of view, this can’t
actually be seen as the false attribution of a property (permanence)
to a real entity that actually has a contrary property (imperma-
nence). The point here is simply that in calling this an error, one
must be very careful not to commit a corresponding error — to
suggest that calling the impermanent impermanent constitutes the
assertion of an ultimate truth or of the presupposition of the ulti-
mate reality of impermanent phenomena. That is at best a true
conventional assertion that indicates the ultimate nature of things.
This claim is made explicit in XXIII: 14:

14. If to grasp onto the view

“The impermanent is permanent” were an error,

Why isn’t grasping onto the view

“In emptiness there is nothing impermanent” an error?

Examination of Errors

289

15. That by means of which there is grasping, and the grasping,
And the grasper, and all that is grasped:

All are being relieved.

It follows that there is no grasping.

The argument above addresses the first and fourth of the princi-
pal errors directly. This verse hints at the generalization of this
argument to the other two. If there is no permanent self, there is
nothing to do the grasping that generates the view that there is
happiness in sarpsara or to grasp onto the body. Since all of these
errors are rooted in grasping and since any inherently existent
grasping would depend on an inherently existent grasper, these
errors cannot be inherently existent. The next two verses empha-
size the nonexistence of both the error and the one in error from
the ultimate standpoint:

16. If there is no grasping
Whether erroneous or otherwise,

Who will come to be in error?

Who will have no error?

17. Error does not develop
In one who is in error.

Error does not develop

In one who is not in error.

And, Nagarjuna points out, following the same pattern used in
the analysis of motion and redeployed numerous times in the text,
we can’t think of error developing in one in whom error is arising.
If the error is already arising in him, an independent error cannot
be developing there. Moreover, as error develops, the person in
whom it is developing changes, and no substrate for the develop-
ment of error can be found. It follows that really existent error,
conceived of as an independent phenomenon, is no more real than
its putative subject (but of course no less real, either):

18. Error does not develop

In one in whom error is arising.

In whom does error develop?

Examine this on your own!

290

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

The next two verses mobilize a by now familiar general argu-
ment against inherent existence specifically against the inherent
existence of error: Either error has arisen or it hasn’t. If it has, it
depends on something and so is not inherently existent. If it has
not, it has not come to be and so is either nonexistent or unex-
plained. Moreover, if error is to be conceived as inherently exis-
tent, it must arise from one of the four possible sources: self, other,
both, or neither. And all four possibilities have been refuted for
inherently existent entities in the general case in Chapter I:

19. If error is not arisen,

How could it come to exist?

If error has not arisen,

How could one be in error?

20. Since an entity does not arise from itself,

Nor from another,

Nor from another and from itself,

How could one be in error?

Nagarjuna now returns to the objects of the four principal errors
and points out that if they existed inherently, as the proponent of
inherently existent error would have it, they would be truly exis-
tent and, hence, would be nondeceptive ultimate truths.

21. If the self and the pure,

The permanent and the blissful existed,

The self, the pure, the permanent,

And the blissful would not be deceptive.

But why is the opponent forced to think of the objects of inher-
ently existent error as inherently existent? That is, of course, an
obviously incoherent position. But the view characterized as an
error must have some ontological basis. And the self that is puta-
tively in error has already been ruled out. So the only remaining
possibility is that the error is the perception of an inherently real
but at the same time deceptive object: a real but nonexistent ob-
ject. It is this that Nagarjuna claims is incoherent. Error then can

Examination of Errors

291

neither be an objectless but inherently existent mental phenome-
non, 106 nor can it be a subjectless perception of an inherently real
but nonexistent object. So in no way can error be grounded in
anything substantial.

22. If the self and the pure,

The permanent and the blissful did not exist,

The nonself, the impure, the permanent,

And suffering would not exist.

But at this point Nagarjuna draws quite a surprising conclusion.
These observations apply not only to the putative objects of the
errors, but also to those of Buddhist doctrine, at least when it is
given a substantialist reading. Continuing his critique of the idea
that assertions made from the standpoint of conventional truth
about the ultimate nature of things are literally true from the ulti-
mate standpoint, Nagarjuna points out that the fact that there is no
permanent self, no happiness in saipsara, and no pure body does
not entail that an impermanent self, suffering, or an impure body
are in any way inherently existent. That is, the objects of correct
conventional understanding are no more inherently existent than
those of incorrect understanding. The truth of even Nagarjuna’s
own philosophical theory is not grounded in its reference to inde-
pendently existent, substantially real entities.

23. Thus, through the cessation of error
Ignorance ceases.

When ignorance ceases

The compounded phenomena, etc., cease.

When all error is abandoned and we see the world aright, we are
no longer ignorant of the true nature of things. But this is not
because we then apprehend things and their true nature. Rather
we apprehend that there are no things, per se, and that those
posited from our side have no nature to understand.

106. For one thing, Nagarjuna has argued that there is no inherently existent
mind in which it could be located. For another, the idea of error, per se, though not
error about anything, is patently incoherent.

292

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

24. If someone’s defilements
Existed through his essence,

How could they be relinquished?

Who could relinquish the existent?

Nagarjuna reminds the substantialist at the end that if the defile-
ments or errors were inherent in the person and, hence, were part
of his/her essence, they would be permanent and, hence, could not
be relinquished. This would constitute a direct rejection of one of
the most fundamental tenets of the Buddhist outlook — the possibil-
ity of liberation.

25. If someone’s defilements

Did not exist through his essence,

How could they be relinquished?

Who could relinquish the nonexistent?

On the other hand, he reminds those who may have followed the
argument this far, but who may be tempted either to nihilism about
the defilements or to the subtler error of asserting that their depen-
dence and emptiness is literally their ultimate nature, that the
defilements must be conventionally real in order to be relin-
quished. They are, from the ultimate point of view, completely
unreal; from that point of view, there is no relinquishment of any-
thing at all. This, as we shall see, is an important harbinger of the
doctrines of the identity of the two truths and of saipsara and
nirvana to be developed in the next two chapters, which represent
the climax of the text.

Chapter XXIV

Examination of the Four
Noble Truths

While Chapter XXIV ostensibly concerns the Four Buddhist
Truths and the way they are to be understood from the vantage
point of emptiness, it is really about the nature of emptiness itself
and about the relation between emptiness and conventional reality.
As such, it is the philosophical heart of Mulamadhyamakakarika .

• The first six verses of the chapter (XXIV: 1-6) present a reply to
Nagarjuna’s doctrine of emptiness by an opponent charging the
doctrine with nihilism. The next eight verses (XXIV: 7-14) are
primarily rhetorical, castigating the opponent for his misunder-
standing of Madhyamika. The positive philosophical work begins
with XXIV: 15. From this point Nagarjuna offers a theory of the
relationship between emptiness, dependent origination, and con-
vention and argues not only that these three can be understood as
corelative, but that if conventional things (or emptiness itself)
were nonempty, the very nihilism with which the reificationist oppo-
nent charges Madhyamika would ensue. This tactic of arguing not
only against each extreme but of arguing that the contradictory
extremes are in fact mutually entailing is, as we have seen in earlier
chapters, a dialectical trademark of Nagarjuna’s philosophical
method. In this chapter, it is deployed with exceptional elegance
and acuity.

294

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

The opponent opens the chapter by claiming that if the entire
phenomenal world were empty, nothing would in fact exist, a con-
clusion absurd on its face and, more importantly, contradictory to
fundamental Buddhist tenets such as the Four Noble Truths
(XXIV: 1—6) as well as to conventional wisdom:

1. If all of this is empty,

Neither arising, nor ceasing,

Then for you, it follows that

The Four Noble Truths do not exist.

The Four Noble Truths are: (1) All life in cyclic existence is suffer-
ing. (2) There is a cause of this suffering, namely, craving caused by
ignorance. (3) There is a release from suffering. (4) The path to that
release is the eightfold Buddhist path of right view, right concentra-
tion, right mindfulness, right speech, right effort, right action, right
morality, right livelihood. The Four Noble Truths, preached by the
Buddha in his first teaching after gaining enlightenment, are the
fundamental philosophical tenets of Buddhism. If it were a conse-
quence of Nagarjuna’s doctrine of emptiness that the Four Noble
Truths were in fact false or, more radically, nonexistent, that would
constitute in this philosophical context an immediate refutation of
the position. This is not because these assertions are articles of faith,
in the sense of revealed doctrine, but because anyone arguing within
this framework has accepted the arguments for them.

2. If the Four Noble Truths do not exist,

Then knowledge, abandonment,

Meditation, and manifestation

Will be completely impossible.

Once we reject the Four Noble Truths, the essential ingredients
of Buddhist practice become unintelligible. Knowledge of the ulti-
mate nature of things becomes impossible since all of the knowl-
edge gained in this tradition is knowledge of things that accords
with the truths. Abandonment of error and craving, and eventually
of cyclic existence, becomes unintelligible without the context of
the analysis contained in the truths. Meditation loses its point. The

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

295

eightfold path becomes a path to nowhere. This all amounts to a
rejection of the entire Buddhist Dharma, one of the three jewels in
which Buddhists take refuge, the others being the Buddha 107 and
the Sangha, or the spiritual community of Buddhist practicioners
and teachers.

3. If these things do not exist,

The four fruits will not arise.

Without the four fruits, there will be no attainers of the fruits.
Nor will there be the faithful.

4. If so, the spiritual community will not exist.

Nor will the eight kinds of person.

If the Four Noble Truths do not exist,

There will be no true Dharma.

These verses highlight these implications regarding the Dharma,
but also point out that the rejection of the Four Noble Truths
entails the nonexistence of the Sangha. For absent practice and the
fruits of the path — that is, realization and accomplishment — there
will be no practicioners and realizers.

5. If there is no doctrine and spiritual community,

How can there be a Buddha?

If emptiness is conceived in this way,

The three jewels are contradicted.

The whole point of the Dharma and the Sangha is to make it
possible to attain buddhahood. The Dharma provides the philo-
sophical insight and knowledge necessary for enlightenment; and
the Sangha provides the teachers, the encouragement, the models,
the opportunity for practice, and other support necessary for the
strenuous and perse verant practice of the path. The attainment of
buddhahood requires reliance on these two. So, if they are re-
jected, so is the possibility of buddhahood. So, the opponent
charges, Nagarjuna’s doctrine of emptiness, in virtue of undermin-

107. Not only the historical Buddha, but also the possibility of buddhahood in
general and one’s own future buddhahood in particular, a point emphasized by the
Most Ven. Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche in oral comments.

296

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

ing the Four Noble Truths, denies the existence of the three ref-
uges and makes Buddhism itself impossible.

6. Hence you assert that there are no real fruits.

And no Dharma. The Dharma itself

And the conventional truth
Will be contradicted.

The implicit dilemma with which Nagarjuna here confronts him-
self is elegant. For as we have seen, the distinction between the two
truths or two vantage points — the ultimate and the conventional —
is fundamental to his own method. So when the opponent charges
that the assertion of the nonexistence of such things as the Four
Noble Truths and of the arising, abiding, and ceasing of entities is
contradictory both to conventional wisdom and to the ultimate truth
(viz. , that all phenomena are dependent, impermanent, merely aris-
ing, abiding momentarily and ceasing, and only existing convention-
ally, empty of inherent existence), Nagarjuna is forced to defend
himself On both fronts and to comment on the connection between
these standpoints.

Nagarjuna launches the reply by charging the opponent with foist-
ing the opponent’s own understanding of emptiness on Nagarjuna.
Though this is not made as explicit in the text as one might like, it is
important to note that the understanding Nagarjuna has in mind is
one that, in the terms of Madhyamika, reifies emptiness itself. This
will be made more explicit in XXIV: 16:

7. We say that this understanding of yours
Of emptiness and the purpose of emptiness
And of the significance of emptiness is incorrect.

As a consequence you are harmed by it.

8. The Buddha’s teaching of the Dharma
Is based on two truths:

A truth of worldly convention
And an ultimate truth.

This is the first explicit announcement of the two truths in the
text. It is important to note that they are introduced as two truths ,

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

297

and that they are introduced as distinct. This will be important to
bear in mind later. For it is tempting, since one of the truths is
characterized as an ultimate truth, to think of the conventional as
“less true .” 108 Moreover, we will see later that while the truths are
introduced as quite distinct here, they are in another sense identi-
fied later. It will be important to be very clear about the respective
senses in which they are distinct and one. The term translated here
as “truth of worldly convention” (Tib: kun-rdzob bden-pa, Skt:
sarpvrti-satya) denotes a truth dependent upon tacit agreement, an
everyday truth, a truth about things as they appear to accurate
ordinary investigation, as judged by appropriate human stan-
dards . 109 The term “ultimate truth” (Tib: dam-pa’i don gyi bden-

108. See, for instance, the comments of Murti (1985) on this verse:

The paramdrtha , however, can be understood and realized only negatively, only
as we remove the samvrti , the forms which thought has already, unconsciously
and beginninglessly, ascribed to the real. The real is to be uncovered, discovered
and realized as the reality of appearances. In the order of our discovery, the
removal of sartivrti must precede our knowledge of the paramdrtha. (p. xxvi
[emphasis in the original]).

As we shall see, this analysis of the distinction between the two truths as an
appearance/reality distinction is explicitly rejected by Nagarjuna in XXIV: 18, 19. 1
agree with Kalupahana (1986), who notes that “ drtha as well as paramdrtha are truths
(satya). Thd former is not presented as an un-truth ( a-satya ) in relation to the latter,
as it would be in an absolutistic tradition. Neither is the former sublated by the lat-
ter.” But Kalupahana goes a bit too far when he continues, “There is no indication
whatsoever that these are two truths with different standing as higher and lower” (p.
69). For there is clearly an important sense in which, despite their ontic unity, the
ultimate truth is epistemologically and soteriologically more significant than the con-
ventional. Kalupahana also errs in my view when he characterizes the two truths as
“two fruits” and, hence, as different but'complementary moral ideals (p. 332). In his
zeal to see Ndgarjuna as a non-Mahayana philosopher and as a Jamesian pragmatist,
I fear that he distorts the central epistemological and metaphysical themes of the text.

109. It should be noted that both Sanskrit and Tibetan offer two terms, each of
which in turn is often translated “conventional truth.” Sanskrit presents “saqtvrti-
satya” and “vyavahdra-satya. ” The former is delightfully ambiguous. “Samvrti” can
mean conventional in all of its normal senses — everyday, by agreement, ordinary,
etc. But it can also mean concealing , or occluding . This ambiguity is exploited by
Madhyamika philosophers, who emphasize that the conventional, in occluding its
conventional character, covers up its own emptiness.

Candraklrti’s commentary to this verse distinguishes three readings, reflecting
three distinct etymologies: “Samvrti” can mean concealing; it can mean mutually
dependent; it can mean transactional, or dependent on linguistic convention. The
latter is captured exactly by the second term “vyavahdra,” which simply means

298

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

pa , Skt; paramartha-satya) denotes the way things are independent
of convention, or to put it another way, the way things turn out to
be when we subject them to analysis with the intention of discover-
ing the nature they have from their own side, as opposed to the
characteristics we impute to them.

9. Those who do not understand

The distinction drawn between these two truths

Do not understand

The Buddha’s profound truth.

10. Without a foundation in the conventional truth,

The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught.

Without understanding the significance of the ultimate,
Liberation is not achieved.

The goal of Madhyamika philosophy is liberation from suffering.
But that liberation, on Nagarjuna’s view, can only be achieved by
insight into the ultimate nature of things — their emptiness— and in-
deed into the ultimate nature of emptiness, which we shall see to be
emptiness again. But this insight can only be gained through reason-
ing and hence through language and thought. And the truth that is
to be grasped can only be indicated through language and thought,
which are thoroughly conventional and which can only be inter-
preted literally at the conventional level. It is important to see here

transactional — determined by convention. Tibetan presents not only “kun-rdzob
bden-pa, ” which literally means costumed, or disguised, picking up on one of the
meanings of “sarpvrti, ” but “tha-snyed bden-pa which means nominal, or by
agreement, picking up the other meaning. Because these two Tibetan terms are,
according to most Tibetan interpretations of Madhyamika, identical in extension,
they are often treated as synonymous. This is a bit unfortunate for when we come to
the parallel pair of terms for conventional existents, “ kun-rdzob yod-pa ” and “ tha-
snyed yod-pa this coextension breaks down in an important case: emptiness is a
nominal (tha snyed) existent, but not a concealing (kun-rdzob) existent.

See Nagao (1989), pp. 40-59, and (1991), pp. 13-16, for additional discussion of
the Sanskrit etymologies and of the sense in which the conventional truth is a truth.

Kalupahana (1986), however, argues (p. 88) that whenever Nagarjuna uses the
terms “samvrti” or “ vyavahara , ” he “was referring to moral conventions of good or
bad.” He argues that the relation between the two truths is a relation between an
ideal life and conventional morality. This claim about usage, however, seems just
plain erroneous.

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

299

that Nagarjuna is not disparaging the conventional by contrast to
the ultimate, but is arguing that understanding the ultimate nature
of things is completely dependent upon understanding conventional
truth. This is true in several senses: First, as we shall see, understand-
ing the ultimate nature of things just is understanding that their con-
ventional nature is merely conventionaL But second, and perhaps
less obscurely, in order to explain emptiness — the ultimate nature
of all phenomena — one must use words and concepts and explain
such things as interdependence, impermanence, and so forth. And
all of these are conventional phenomena. So both in the end, where
the understanding of ultimate truth is in an important sense the un-
derstanding of the nature of the conventional, and on the path,
where the cultivation of such understanding requires the use of con-
ventions, conventional truth must be affirmed and understood . 110

11. By a misperception of emptiness

A person of little intelligence is destroyed.

Like a snake incorrectly seized
Or like a spell incorrectly cast.

110. See Streng (1973), pp. 92-98, and Huntington (1989), pp. 48-50, for a simi-
lar analysis. (But Huntington places a bit too much emphasis on specifically social
convention in his analysis of the conventional truth, neglecting the role of what the
Madhyamikas call “primal ignorance,” or the “innate disposition to reify,” embodied
in our ordinary cognitive tendencies, which may, in fact, be ontogenetically more fun-
damental than the specifically social conventions to which they give rise and that then
reinforce them. See esp. pp. 52-54.) This analysis contrasts sharply with Murti’s
(1973) assertion that “the Absolute [ultimate truth] is transcendent to thought . . .
phenomena in their essential form” (p. 9). This view of the ultimate truth as an abso-
lute standing behind, or in opposition to, a relative truth of the conventional, as a
Kantian noumenal world stands to a phenomenal world, is quite contrary to
Nagarjuna’s doctrine of the emptiness of emptiness. See also Murti (1955) for an ex-
tended defense of this reading and Sprung (1973), esp. pp. 43—46, for another argu-
ment for a radical discontinuity between the two truths. Tola and Dragonetti (1981)
agree with this view of Madhyamika as nihilistic with regard to the conventional
truth: “As a consequence of their argumentation and analysis, the Madhyamikas
deny the existence of the empirical reality, of all of its manifestations. . . .

As a result . . . there remains (we are obliged to say) ‘something’ completely
different. . . . That ‘something’ is the true reality” (p. 276). Crittenden (1981) is in
substantial agreement with this view.

Curiously, even Nagao seems to succumb to this temptation to absolutize empti-
ness when he turns to his analysis of the ultimate truth, despite his emphasis on the
identity of the two truths when he is elucidating the conventional. See Nagao
(1989), pp. 71-72, 75-76.

300

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

The Madhyamika doctrine of emptiness is subtle and is easily
misinterpreted. In particular, it is often misinterpreted as a thor-
oughgoing nihilism about phenomena. This is so not only among
classical Indian critics of Madhyamika, in both Buddhist and non-
Buddhist philosophical schools, but also among Western critics,
who have sometimes regarded it as completely negative . 111 In this
respect, Madhyamika philosophy has suffered from the same fate
as much Western sceptical philosophy, including that of the
Pyrrhonians and of Hume and Wittgenstein, all of whom were at
considerable pains to warn readers against interpreting them as
denying the existence of ordinary entities, but all of whom have
been repeatedly read as doing so. Nagarjuna is here charging the
opponent represented in the opening verses with interpreting the
assertion that a phenomenon is empty as the assertion that it is
nonexistent. Nothing, Nagarjuna will argue, could be further from
the truth . 112

111. E.g., Stcherbatsky (1930), Robinson (1967), and Wood (1994).

112. Wood (1994) on p. 202 says that he is

unable to find anything in MK 24 to support [the non-nihilistic] interpretation of
MK 24.7-11. . . . According to [the non-nihilistic interpretation], we would
have to read MMK 24 as follows. According to Nagarjuna, the doctrine that
everything is void does not mean that everything is unreal or nonexistent; it only
means that everything is empty in the sense that everything arises and perishes
through a process of dependent co-origination (pratitya-samutpada ); and the
critic must be taken as criticizing this position.

Wood then argues correctly that no Buddhist opponent would criticize the doctrine
of dependent co-origination. This is in fact the cornerstone of Wood’s nihilistic
reading of the text , as it must be . For this chapter clinches the non-nihilistic interpre-
tation. So, a few things deserve note: While Wood cannot find anything in this
chapter to support such a reading, commentators including both Buddhapalita and
Bhavaviveka, as well as CandrakTrti and Tsong Khapa, not to mention a host of
modern Western and Tibetan scholars, have found quite a bit there. Nagarjuna’s
disciple Aryadeva also insists in Catuhsdtaka on a non-nihilistic reading of empti-
ness. In fact Wood does have the necessary gloss on the verses in question just right.
But he misses the position attributed to the opponent entirely. The opponent need
not be represented as denying that phenomena are codependently originated.
Rather the opponent is failing to see that that dependent co-origination is empti-
ness. He hence sees the attribution of emptiness as the denial, rather than the
assertion, of codependent origination. Hence the entire remainder of the chapter is
devoted not to arguing for emptiness, nor to arguing for the reality of codependent
origination, but rather to arguing for their identity. To miss this is to miss the entire
point of the text.

Examination of the Four Noble Truths 301

12. For that reason — that the Dharma is

Deep and difficult to understand and to learn —

The Buddha’s mind despaired of
Being able to teach it.

13. You have presented fallacious refutations
That are not relevant to emptiness.

Your confusion about emptiness

Does not belong to me.

Nagarjuna here simply denies that his view sustains the nihilistic
reading, while granting that if one treats emptiness as nonexis-
tence, all of the absurd conclusions that the opponent enumerates
indeed follow. But, Nagarjuna continues in XXIV: 14, the interpre-
tation of the entire Madhyamika system depends directly on how
one understands the concept of emptiness. If that is understood
correctly, everything else falls into place. If it is misunderstood,
nothing in the system makes any sense:

14. For him to whom emptiness is clear,

Everything becomes clear.

For him to whom emptiness is not clear,

Nothing becomes clear. 113

15. When you foist on us
All of your errors

You are like a man who has mounted his horse
And has forgotten that very horse.

Here is the idea behind this image, a standard trope in classical
Indian rhetoric: A man with a herd of horses thinks that he is
missing one and accuses you of having stolen it. As he rides around
and counts his horses, he always comes up one short. But you point
out to him that the one he is accusing you of stealing is in fact the
very one he is riding but has forgotten to count. Likewise,
Nagarjuna is saying, the opponent who confuses the Madhyamika

113. The Tibetan term translated as “clear” here is “rung-ba” which literally
means suitable , or appropriate. But while that makes sense in Tibetan, it clearly
doesn’t in English, and the context indicates “clear” as the word that best captures
the meaning.

302

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

analysis in terms of emptiness with nihilism is charging Nagarjuna
with a nihilism that is in fact his own. Nagarjuna will argue, that is,
that while the opponent claims to preserve the reality of the three
jewels, the Four Noble Truths, and dependently arisen phenomena
against Nagarjuna’s nihilism, Nagarjuna himself can explain the
reality of these things, though it will turn out that on the oppo-
nent’s view they must be nonexistent ! 114 At this point the positive
philosophical program of this chapter begins.

16. If you perceive the existence of all things
In terms of their essence,

Then this perception of all things

Will be without the perception of causes and conditions.

There are two related assertions contained in this critical verse:
First, at the conventional level, the opponent, in virtue of thinking
that to exist is to exist inherently, will be unable to account for
dependent arising and hence for anything that must be depen-
dently arisen. As Nagarjuna will make explicit later on, this will
include such things as suffering, its causes, nirvana, the path
thereto, the Dharma, the Sangha, and the Buddha, as well as more
mundane phenomena.

But secondly and more subtly, since the opponent is seeing ac-
tual existence as existence as a discrete entity with an essence, it
would follow that for the opponent the reality of emptiness would

114. But see Wood (1994), pp. 115-16, for a dramatically different reading (of the
parallel verse in Vigrahavydvartani— but the points all go over) of this verse. Wood
interprets emptiness as complete nonexistence and reads Nagarjuna as a thoroughgo-
ing nihilist. So he interprets Nagarjuna as asserting that if one sees conventional
phenomena as real in any way, one is in trouble and that philosophical problems
vanish only if one sees all apparent phenomena as illusions. In offering this interpreta-
tion, Wood notes that Nagarjuna often characterizes phenomena as like dreams or
mirages. That is indeed so, but his interpretation of that simile is itself problematic.
For a thing to be like a mirage or a dream is for it to exist in one way (as, e.g., a
mirage) , but to not exist in the way that it appears (as water) . To put the point another
way: Mirages really are mirages, but are not really water, though they might appear to
be. So conventional phenomena, according to the simile, really are empty, depen-
dently arisen, nominally real phenomena, but are not substantial, inherently existent
phenomena, though they might appear to be. So, pace Wood, it is not Nagarjuna, but
his opponent who is the nihilist here. See also Padhye (1988), esp. pp. 61-66, for a
good critical discussion of the nihilistic reading.

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

303

entail that emptiness itself is an entity, an inherently existing entity
at that. To see emptiness in this way is to see it as radically different
from conventional, phenomenal reality. It is to see the conven-
tional as illusory and emptiness as the reality standing behind it. If
Nagarjuna were to adopt this view of emptiness, he would indeed
have to deny the reality of the entire phenomenal, conventional
world. This would also be to ascribe a special, nonconventional,
nondependent hyperreality to emptiness itself. Ordinary things
would be viewed as nonexistent, emptiness as substantially exis-
tent. (It is important and central to the Madhyamika dialectic to
see that these go together — that nihilism about one kind of entity
is typically paired with reification of another.) This view is not
uncommon in Buddhist philosophy, and Nagarjuna is clearly aware
that it might be suggested by his own position. So. Nagarjuna’s
reply must begin by distancing himself from this reified view of
emptiness itself and hence from the dualism it entails. Only then
can he show that to reify emptiness in this way would indeed entail
the difficulties his imaginary opponent adumbrates, difficulties not
attaching to Nagarjuna’s own view. 115 This brings us to the central
verses of this chapter:

17. Effects and causes

And agent and action

And conditions and arising and ceasing

And effects will be rendered impossible.

Again, this verse is to be read at two levels: At the conventional
level, the opponent, through reifying phenomena in order to pre-
serve their conventional reality, will deny the possibility of any

115. So, for instance, when Wood (1994) writes on p. 161 that “[he does] not
think that there is a non-nihilistic sense of the phrase ‘does not exist,’ ” he is
succumbing to the very view that Nagarjuna criticizes here — the view that to exist is
to exist inherently and that to not exist inherently is not to exist at all. The non-
nihilistic sense of “does not exist” is in play when Nagarjuna, in providing a reduc-
tio on the opponent’s view, is taking inherent existence as the meaning of “exis-
tence.” Given that understanding, Nagarjuna can quite easily say that, e.g., the self
does not exist while retaining his commitment to its conventional existence. He can
also say that no inherently existent phenomena exist at all without denying the
conventional existence of conventional phenomena.

304

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

kind of dependence, impermanence, or action. But more impor-
tantly, if Nagarjuna’ s analysis of these things as empty meant that
they were nonexistent and that only emptiness exists, then Nagar-
juna himself would be denying the empirical reality of these phe-
nomena. That is, not only would an inherently existent phenome-
nal world be devoid of change, dependency, and so forth, but
inherently existent emptiness would render the phenomenal world
completely nonexistent.

This defines the straits between which the middle path must be
found, as well as the presupposition that generates both extremes:
The extreme of reification of the phenomenal world depends upon
viewing emptiness nihilistically; the extreme of reification of empti-
ness requires us to be nihilistic about the phenomenal world. A
middle path must reify neither and hence must regard emptiness,
as well as all empty phenomena, as empty. Both extremes presup-
pose that to exist is to exist inherently. They only disagree about
whether this inherent existence is properly ascribed to conven-
tional phenomena or to their ultimate nature. Nagarjuna will deny
exactly that presupposition, arguing that to exist is to exist conven-
tionally and that both conventional phenomena and their ultimate
natures exist in exactly that way. The next verse is the climax of the
entire text and can truly be said to contain the entire Madhyamika
system in embryo. It is perhaps the most often quoted and exten-
sively commented on verse in all of Mahayana philosophy:

18. Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness.

That, being a dependent designation.

Is itself the middle way.

19. Something that is not dependently arisen,

Such a thing does not exist.

Therefore a nonempty thing

Does not exist.

These two verses demand careful scrutiny and are best discussed
together. In XXIV: 18, Nagarjuna establishes a critical three-way
relation between emptiness, dependent origination and verbal con-
vention, and asserts that this relation itself is the Middle Way
toward which his entire philosophical system is aimed. As we shall

Examination of the Four Noble Truths 305

see, this is the basis for understanding the emptiness of emptiness
itself. Nagarjuna is asserting that the dependently arisen is empti-
ness. Emptiness and the phenomenal world are not two distinct
things. They are, rather, two characterizations of the same thing.
To say of something that it is dependently co-arisen is to say that it
is empty. To say of something that it is empty is another way of
saying that it arises dependently . 116

Moreover, whatever is dependently co-arisen is verbally estab-
lished. That is, the identity of any dependently arisen thing depends
upon verbal conventions. To say of a thing that it is dependently
arisen is to say that its identity as a single entity is nothing more
than its being the referent of a word. The thing itself, apart from
conventions of individuation, has no identity. To say of a thing that
its identity is a merely verbal fact about it is to say that it is empty.
To view emptiness in this way is to see it neither as an entity nor as
unreal — it is to see it as conventionally real . 117

Moreover, “emptiness” itself is asserted to be a dependent desig-
nation (Tib: brten nas gdags-pa, Skt: prajnaptir-upadayaf). 118 Its
referent, emptiness itself, is thereby asserted to be merely depen-
dent and nominal — conventionally existent but ultimately empty.
This is hence a middle path with regard to emptiness . 119 To view

116. Padhye (1988), pp. 66-67, also emphasizes this corelativity of emptiness
and dependent arising.

117. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in oral remarks (Columbia University 1994),
says:

Since dependent co-origination is used as a premise to argue for the lack of
inherent existence of things, it can’t be independent of it. Lack of inherent
existence must always be understood as negative and as a feature of conventional
reality. ... In Mulamadhyamakakarika these two truths — dependent co-origi-
nation and emptiness — are taught as two perspectives on the same reality.

118. See Nagao (1991), pp. 190-94, for a useful discussion of alternative render-
ings of this compound and of the interpretive issues raised in translating it. Nagao
himself opts for “a designation based upon (some material).” I find this both
awkward and misleading; it commits Nagarjuna univocally to “some material” as
the designative basis for emptiness, submerging the metalinguistic reading. Both
seem to me to be clearly intended by the text.

119. Compare to Murti (1973):

Relativity or mutual dependence is a mark of the unreal. . . For the Mad-

hyamika, reciprocity, dependence, is the lack of inner essence. Tattva , or the Real,
is something in itself, self-evident, and self-existent. Reason, which understands
things through distinction and relation is a principle of falsity, as it distorts and
thereby hides the Real. Only the Absolute as the unconditioned is real. . . . (p. 16)

306

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

the dependently originated world in this way is to see it neither as
nonempty nor as completely nonexistent. It is, viewed in this way,
conventionally existent, but empty. So we have a middle path with
regard to dependent origination . 120 To view convention in this way

This represents as clear a statement as one would like of the position that the
conventional/ultimate distinction is a version of an appearance/reality or phenom-
enon/noumenon distinction, a position I read NagSrjuna as at pains to refute. As
Murti says later in this essay (p. 22), “I have interpreted Sunyatd and the doctrine of
the IWo Truths as a kind of Absolutism, not Nihilism. Nagarjuna’s ‘no views about
reality’ should not be taken as advocating a ‘no-reality view.’ ”

Nagao (1991) concurs with Murti on this point: “The TWofold Truth is composed
of paramartha (superworldly or absolute) and saipvtti (worldly or conventional).
These two lie sharply contrasted, the former as the real truth, and the latter as the
truth concealed by the veil of falsehood and ignorance” (p. 46). Now while Nagao,
to be sure, is less disparaging of the conventional truth than is Murti, noting the
alternative etymologies of “sanivKti-satya” and allowing that “. . . the TWofold
Truth opens a channel by which language recovers itself in spite of its falsehood and
ignorance,” he emphasizes that “the ‘silence’ of paramartha is true ‘Wisdom’ ” (p.
46) Hence in the end, he agrees with Murti on the critical interpretive claim that the
two truths are radically distinct from one another and that the conventional truth is
not in fact a truth in any straightforward sense. See also Napper [1993] and Hopkins
[1983] for a similar interpretation.

There are two things to say about this interpretation: First, as Nagarjuna would
be quick to point out, absolutism is not the only alternative to nihilism. Mad-
hyamika is an attempt to forge a middle path between precisely those two extremes.
And second, to say that a rejection of absolutism is a rejection of the reality of the
world tout court is to presuppose exactly the equation of existence with inherent
existence that is the target of Nagarjuna’s critique. To the extent that “reality” is
interpreted to be absolute reality, Nagarjuna indeed advocates a “no-reality view.”
But to the extent that we accept the Madhyamika reinterpretation of “reality” as
conventional reality, no such consequence follows.

Streng (1973) agrees:

Because Nagarjuna’s ultimate affirmation is pratityasamutpada, any conven-
tional affirmation that might suggest an absolute, in the form of a dogma or
doctrine, is avoided. Even §unya y usvabhava, Tathagata or pratyoya cannot be
transformed into absolutes. . . .

. . . The highest awareness, which is needed for release from svabhava, is not
the result of moving from the finite to the infinite, but the release from ignorance
about the dependent co-origination of anything at all. Paramarthasatya, then, is
living in full awareness of dependent co-origination. . . . (p. 36)

120. Nagao (1989) puts this point nicely:

When the birth-death cycle itself is empty, when there is nothing that exists
permanently as its own essence; when, without self-identity all the functions of
beings depend upon others, then dependent co-arising is emptiness and empti-
ness is dependent co-arising. . . .

307

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

is to view it neither as ontologically insignificant — it determines
the character of the phenomenal world — nor as ontologically
efficacious — it is empty. And so we also have a middle way with
regard to convention. Finally, given the nice ambiguity in the refer-
ence of “that,” (de ni), not only are “dependent arising” and “emp-
tiness” asserted to be dependent designations, and their referents
hence merely nominal, but the very relation between them is as-
serted to be so dependent and hence to be empty.

This last fact, the emptiness of the relation between the conven-
tional world of dependently arisen phenomena and emptiness itself,
is of extreme importance at another stage of the Madhyamika dialec-
tic and comes to salience in Nagarjuna’s Vigrahavyavartani and in
Candrakirti’s Prasannapada. For this amounts to the emptiness of
the central ontological tenet of Nagarjuna’s system and is what
allows him to claim, despite all appearances, that he is positionless.
That is, Nagarjuna thereby has a ready reply to the following appar-
ent reductio argument (reminiscent of classical Greek and subse-
quent Western challenges to Pyrrhonian scepticism): You say that
all things are, from the ultimate standpoint, nonexistent. That must
then apply to your own thesis. It therefore is really nonexistent, and
your words, only nominally true. Your own thesis, therefore, denies
its own ground and is self-defeating. This objection would be a
sound one against a view that in fact asserted its own inherent
existence, or grounded its truth on an inherently existing ontological
basis. But, Nagarjuna suggests here, that is not the case for his
account. Rather everything, including this very thesis, has only
nominal truth, and nothing is either inherently existent or true in
virtue of designating an inherently existent fact. This is hence one
more point at which ladders must be kicked away. 121

These morals are driven home in XXIV: 19, where Nagarjuna
emphasizes that everything — and this must include emptiness — is

. . . The real is suchness where there is an identification of emptiness and
dependent co-arising whereby empty non-being “hollows out” every trace of
inner selfhood, (p. 15)

See also Ng (1993), esp. pp. 16-18.

121. See Garfield (unpublished) and Streng (1973), chap., 4 for a similar inter-
pretation of these verses and the correlative arguments.

308

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

dependently arisen. So everything — including emptiness — lacks in-
herent existence. So nothing lacks the three coextensive properties
of emptiness, dependent-origination, and conventional identity.

With this in hand, Nagarjuna can reply to the critic: He points
out (XXIV: 20-35) that, in virtue of the identity of dependent
origination and emptiness on the one hand and of ontological inde-
pendence and intrinsic reality on the other, such phenomena as
arising, ceasing, suffering, change, enlightenment, and so on — the
very phenomena the opponent charges Nagarjuna with denying —
are possible only if they are empty. The tables are thus turned: It
appeared that Nagarjuna, in virtue of arguing for the emptiness of
these phenomena, was arguing that in reality they do not exist
precisely because for the reifier of emptiness, existence and empti-
ness are opposites. But, in fact, because of the identity of empti-
ness and conventional existence, it is the reifier who, in virtue of
denying the emptiness of these phenomena, denies their existence.
And it is hence the reifier of emptiness who is impaled on both
horns of the dilemma he presented to Nagarjuna: Contradicting
the ultimate truth, the opponent denies that these phenomena are
empty; contradicting the conventional, he is forced to deny that
they even exist! And so Nagarjuna can conclude:

20. If all this were nonempty, as in your view,

There would be no arising and ceasing.

Then the Four Noble Truths

Would become nonexistent.

The argument for this surprising turnabout reductio is straight-
forwardly presented in the subsequent verses:

21. If it is not dependently arisen,

How could suffering come to be?

Suffering has been taught to be impermanent,

And so cannot come from its own essence.

The first noble truth is the truth of the existence of suffering.
The opponent charges Nagarjuna with denying the existence of
suffering through asserting its emptiness. But, Nagarjuna points
out, since emptiness is dependent origination, when the opponent

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

309

denies its emptiness, he denies that suffering is dependently origi-
nated. But he agrees that all phenomena are dependently origi-
nated. He thus is forced to deny the existence of suffering. But
for Nagarjuna, since existence amounts to emptiness, the asser-
tion of the emptiness of suffering affirms, rather than denies, its
existence.

22. If something comes from its own essence,

How could it ever be arisen?

It follows that if one denies emptiness
There can be no arising (of suffering).

The second noble truth is that suffering has a cause. But, again,
if the opponent asserts the nonemptiness of suffering, he asserts
that it does not arise from causes and conditions. Yet Nagarjuna’s
analysis shows that it must, in virtue of its emptiness, be so arisen
and thus accords with the second truth.

23. If suffering had an essence,

Its cessation would not exist.

So if an essence is posited,

One denies cessation.

Similarly, the third noble truth is the truth of cessation. But inher-
ently existent things cannot cease. Empty ones can. Nagarjuna’s
analysis thus explains the third truth; the reifier contradicts it.

24. If the path had an essence,

Cultivation would not be appropriate.

If this path is indeed cultivated,

It cannot have an essence.

25. If suffering, arising, and
Ceasing are nonexistent,

By what path could one seek
To obtain the cessation of suffering?

The fourth truth is the truth of the path. Again, the path only
makes sense, and cultivation of the path is only possible, if suffer-

310

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

ing is impermanent and alleviable and if the nature of mind is
empty and hence malleable. The path, after all, is a path from
suffering and to awakening. If the former cannot cease and the
latter does not depend on cultivation, the path is nonexistent. But
it is the analysis in terms of emptiness that makes this coherent. An
analysis on which either the phenomena were inherently existent
or on which emptiness was and the phenomena were therefore
nonexistent would make nonsense of the Four Noble Truths.
Nagarjuna now turns to the implications for this line of argument
for the three jewels, the Sangha, the Buddha, and the Dharma:

26. If nonunderstanding comes to be
Through its essence,

How will understanding arise?

Isn’t essence stable?

If ignorance is real and thus for the opponent inherently existent,
there is no possibility of replacing it with insight. Therefore the
cultivation of Buddhist practice is impossible, or at least pointless.

27. In the same way, the activities of
Relinquishing, realizing, and meditating
And the four fruits

Would not be possible.

28. For an essentialist,

Since the fruits through their essence
Are already unrealized,

In what way could one attain them?

So the essentialist has a dilemma if he wants to maintain the
possibility of a community of practicioners (the Sangha) and of a
path for them to practice: Either the ignorance in which they find
themselves and that serves as the impetus to practice is inherently
existent, in which case practice is bound to be inefficacious, or the
understanding they hope to achieve is inherently existent, in which
case there is no need to practice since it is already present and no
use in practicing since its existence is independent of practice.

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

311

29. Without the fruits, there are no attainers of the fruits,

Or enterers. From this it follows that

The eight kinds of persons do not exist.

If these don’t exist, there is no spiritual community.

The consequence of this is that there is no Sangha. The existence
of the Sangha is entirely dependent upon the existence of the path
and of the possibility of the fruits of the path — increasing degrees
of realization since the Sangha is, by definition, the community of
practicioners of the path.

30. From the nonexistence of the Noble Truths
Would follow the nonexistence of the true doctrine.

If there is no doctrine and no spiritual community,

How could a Buddha arise?

But it would also follow that there is no Dharma — no true Bud-
dhist doctrine since that is grounded on the existence of the Four
Noble Truths. And finally, as Nagarjuna emphasizes in XXIV: 31,
32, since the attainment of buddhahood depends upon the study
and practice of the Dharma within the context of the spiritual
community, the opponent’s view, unlike Nagarj una’s, has the con-
sequence that no buddha can arise. Moreover, if the Buddha and
enlightenment were each inherently existent, they would be inde-
pendent and could hence arise independently, which is absurd. To
be a buddha is to be enlightened, and vice versa:

31. For you, it would follow that a Buddha
Arises independent of enlightenment.

And for you, enlightenment would arise
Independent of a Buddha.

32. For you, one who through his essence
Was unenlightened,

Even by practicing the path to enlightenment
Could not achieve enlightenment.

Nagarjuna has hence demonstrated that any reification, whether
of the conventional or of the ultimate, ends up, paradoxically,
denying the existence of the very things it reifies. And any

312

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

reification renders the most fundamental Buddhist philosophical
insights and practices incoherent. A thoroughgoing analysis in
terms of emptiness, on the other hand — one that includes the un-
derstanding of the emptiness of emptiness — renders the entire phe-
nomenal world as well as emptiness itself comprehensible as nomi-
nally existent, empirically actual, and dependently arisen — real
but essenceless. At this stage, Nagarjuna shifts to the charge lev-
eled by the opponent in XXIV : 2 that no practice is intelligible in
the context of emptiness and argues that, on the contrary, practice
is intelligible only in that context. The argument is a reprise of
earlier moves, and so is rather straightforward:

33. Moreover, one could never perform
Right or wrong actions.

If this were all nonempty what could one do?

That with an essence cannot be produced.

Nagarjuna now turns to the moral dimensions of the extreme
positions and their consequences for the Buddhist doctrine of
karma, specifically with regard to the consequences for one’s own
life of one’s actions. Nonempty phenomena, such as the opponent
wishes to posit, are seen, on analysis, to be static. But practice and
action require dependence, change, and a regular relation between
one’s actions and one’s future state. So in the preceding verse,
Nagarjuna notes that in a static, nonempty world, we can’t even
make sense of the possibility of action. He then points out (XXIV:
34) that even were action possible, in virtue of the impossibility of
change and dependence in an essentialist universe, there would be
no consequences of those actions. For to be a consequence is to be
dependent, hence to be empty, hence from the standpoint of the
essentialist — whether reificationist or nihilist — nonexistent.

34. For you, from neither right nor wrong actions
Would the fruit arise.

If the fruit arose from right or wrong actions,

According to you, it wouldn’t exist.

35. If, for you, a fruit arose
From right or wrong actions,

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

313

Then, having arisen from right or wrong actions
How could that fruit be nonempty?

The reificationist develops a strict dichotomy between things
that exist inherently and things that are completely nonexistent.
That dichotomy exhausts the ontological domain. But neither possi-
bility for understanding the nature of practice, the practicioner, or
the fruits of practice makes sense of action. If the relevant phenom-
ena are granted inherent existence, their essence precludes devel-
opment and change. If, on the other hand, they lack essence and
hence, for the reifier, are completely nonexistent, there literally is
no practice, in any sense 4 . But if they are conceived of as empty and
hence empirically and conventionally real, yet essenceless and de-
pendent, the possibility and purpose of practice fall out straightfor-
wardly. So it is the reifier, not Nagarjuna, who makes action and
soteriology impossible, and Nagarjuna and not the reifier who
rescue them from ontological oblivion.

36. If dependent arising is denied,

Emptiness itself is rejected.

This would contradict

All of the worldly conventions.

Recall the other horn of the dilemma in XXIV: 6. The opponent
charged Nagarjuna not only with contradicting fundamental Bud-
dhist tenets, but with contradicting the conventional truth as well.
Nagarjuna has responded up to this point to the first charge, turning
it back on the opponent. He now does the same with the second.

Nagarjuna suggests that to assert the nonemptiness of phenom-
ena and of their interrelations when emptiness is properly under-
stood is not only philosophically deeply confused, but is contradic-
tory to common sense. We can make sense of this argument in the
following way: Common sense neither posits nor requires intrinsic
reality in phenomena or a real causal nexus. Common sense holds
the world to be a network of dependently arisen phenomena. So
common sense only makes sense if the world is asserted to be
empty. Hence it is the opponent, not Nagarjuna, who disagrees
with the conventional truth.

314

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

The standpoint of emptiness is hence not at odds with the con-
ventional standpoint, only with a particular philosophical under-
standing of it — that which takes the conventional to be more than
merely conventional. What is curious — and, from the Buddhist
standpoint, sad — about the human condition, on this view, is the
naturalness and seductiveness of that philosophical perspective . 122

This, of course, is the key to the soteriological character of the
text: Reification is the root of grasping and craving and hence of all
suffering. And it is perfectly natural, despite its incoherence. By
understanding emptiness, Nagarjuna intends one to break this
habit and extirpate the root of suffering. But if in doing so one falls
into the abyss of nihilism, nothing is achieved. For then action
itself is impossible and senseless, and one’s realization amounts to
nothing. Or again, if one relinquishes the reification of phenomena
but reifies emptiness, that issues in a new grasping and craving —
the grasping of emptiness and the craving for Nirvana — and a new
round of suffering. Only with the simultaneous realization of the
emptiness, but conventional reality, of phenomena and of the emp-
tiness of emptiness, argues Nagarjuna, can suffering be wholly
uprooted.

Let us consider now more carefully what it is to say that empti-
ness itself is empty. The claim, even in the context of Buddhist
philosophy, does have a somewhat paradoxical air. For emptiness
is, in Mahayana philosophical thought, the ultimate nature of all
phenomena. And the distinction between the merely conventional
nature of things and their ultimate nature would seem to mark the
distinction between the apparent and the real. While it is plausible
to say that what is merely apparent is empty of reality, it seems

122. This point requires emphasis. For Nagarjuna is not merely speaking to and
correcting philosophers. He is no Berkeley, suggesting that his own position is that
of common sense and that only a philosopher would reify. In fact, it is fundamental
to any Buddhist outlook, and certainly to Nagarj una’s view, that one of the root
delusions that afflicts all non-buddhas is the innate tendency to reify. But that
tendency is raised to high art by metaphysics. NagSrjuna intends his attack to strike
both at the prereflective delusion and at its more sophisticated philosophical coun-
terpart. But in doing so, he is not denying, and is in fact explaining, the
nonmetaphysical part of our commonsense framework — that part that enables us to
act and to communicate and, especially for Nagarjuna, to practice the Buddhist

315

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

nihilistic to say that what is ultimately real is empty of reality, and
as we have seen, the Madhyamika are quite consciously an-
tinihilistic. But again, when we say that a phenomenon is empty,
we say, inter alia, that it is impermanent , 123 that it depends upon
conditions and that its identity is dependent upon convention. Do
we really want to say of each phenomenon that its emptiness — the
fact that it is empty — is itself impermanent; itself dependent on
something else; itself dependent upon conventions? It might at
least appear that even if all other properties of conventional en-
tities were so, their emptiness would be an eternal, independent,
essential fact.

It may be useful to approach the emptiness of emptiness by first
asking what it would be to treat emptiness as nonempty. When we
say that a phenomenon is empty, we mean that when we try to
specify its essence, we come up with nothing. When we look for
the substance that underlies the properties, or the bearer of the
parts, we find none. When we ask what it is that gives a thing its
identity, we stumble not upon ontological facts but upon conven-
tions. For a thing to be nonempty would be for it to have an
essence discoverable upon analysis, for it to be a substance inde-
pendent of its attributes, or a bearer of parts, for its identity to be
self-determined by its essence. A nonempty entity can be fully
characterized nonrelationally.

For emptiness to be nonempty would be for it to be a substantial
entity, an independent existent, a nonconventional phenomenon.
On such a view, emptiness would be entirely distinct from any
conventional phenomenon. It would, on such a view, be the object
of correct perception, while conventional phenomena would be

123. To be sure, both in the Abidharma literature and in most Mahayana meta-
physical literature, space is regarded as permanent, despite being a conventional
phenomenon. There are two things to say about this apparent counterexample:
First, on general metaphysical grounds the claim is suspect. Whether one argues
along Kantian lines, or from general relativity theory, space apparently shares,
from the transcendental point of view, the impermanence of all other phenomena.
But second, and for the purposes of understanding this text, more importantly,
Nagarjuna never asserts the permanence of space and repeatedly associates empti-
ness with impermanence. I would thus argue that other Mahayana literature to the
contrary notwithstanding, nothing in Nagarjuna’s presentation of Madhyamika en-
tails the permanence of space or indeed of any other entity.

316

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

the objects of delusive perception. While conventional phenomena
would be dependent upon conventions, conditions, or the igno-
rance of obstructed minds, emptiness, on such a view, would be
apparent precisely when one sees through those conventions, dis-
pels that ignorance, and overcomes those obstructions. Though
such a position might appear metaphysically extravagant, it is
hardly unmotivated. For one thing, it seems that emptiness does
have an identifiable essence — namely the lack of inherent exis-
tence. So if to be empty is to be empty of essence, emptiness fails
on that count to be empty. Moreover, since all phenomena, on the
Madhyamika view, are empty, emptiness would appear to be eter-
nal and independent of any particular conventions and, hence, not
dependently arisen. The two truths, on such an ontological vision,
are indeed radically distinct from one another.

But this position is, from Nagarjuna’s perspective, untenable.
The best way to see that is this: Suppose that we take a conven-
tional entity, such as a table. We analyze it to demonstrate its
emptiness, finding that there is no table apart from its parts, that
it cannot be distinguished in a principled way from its antecedent
and subsequent histories, and so forth. So we conclude that it is
empty. But now let us analyze that emptiness — the emptiness of
the table — to see what we find. What do we find? Nothing at all
but the table’s lack of inherent existence. No conventional table,
no emptiness of the table. The emptiness is dependent upon the
table and is, therefore, itself empty of inherent existence, as is the
emptiness of that emptiness, and so on, ad infinitum. To see the
table as empty, for Nagarjuna, is not to somehow see “beyond”
the illusion of the table to some other, more real entity. It is to
see the table as conventional ; as dependent. But the table that we
see when we see its emptiness is the very same table, seen not as
the substantial thing we instinctively posit, but rather as it is.
Emptiness is hence not different from conventional reality — it is
the fact that conventional reality is conventional. Hence it must
be dependently arisen since it depends upon the existence of
empty phenomena. Hence emptiness itself is empty. This is per-
haps the most radical and deep step in the Madhyamika dialectic,
but it is also, as we shall see, the step that saves it from falling

Examination of the Four Noble Truths 317

into metaphysical extravagance and brings it back to sober prag-
matic scepticism.* 24

37. If emptiness itself is rejected.

No action will be appropriate.

There would be action which did not begin,

And there would be agent without action.

Without viewing the world as empty, we can make no sense of
any human activity. Action would be pointless since nothing could
be accomplished. Any existent action would have to have been
eternal, and anyone who is an agent would be so independently of
any action since agency would be an essential attribute.

38. If there is essence, the whole world
Will be unarising, unceasing,

And static. The entire phenomenal world
Would be immutable.

Without viewing the world as empty, we can make no sense of
impermanence or dependent origination and hence no sense of
change.

39. If it (the world) were not empty,

Then action would be without profit.

The act of ending suffering and

Abandoning misery and defilement would not exist.

Perhaps most important from the standpoint of Buddhist phe-
nomenology and, though not hard to see, easy to overlook: We are
driven to reify ourselves, the objects in the world around us, and—
in more abstract philosophical moods — theoretical constructs, val-
ues, and so on because of an instinctual feeling that without an
intrinsically real self, an intrinsically real world, and intrinsically
real values, life has no real meaning and is utterly hopeless.
Nagarjuna emphasizes at the close of this chapter that this gets

124. That is, scepticism in the Pyrrhonian, or Humean sense: See Garfield
(1990).

318

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

things exactly backward: If we seriously and carefully examine
what such a reified world would be like, it would indeed be hope-
less. But if instead we treat ourselves, others, and our values as
empty, there is hope and a purpose to life. For then, in the context
of impermanence and dependence, human action and knowledge
make sense, and moral and spiritual progress become possible. It is
only in the context of ultimate nonexistence that actual existence
makes any sense at all.

40. Whoever sees dependent arising
Also sees suffering
And its arising

And its cessation as well as the path.

Nagarjuna closes as he opens, with the Four Noble Truths, this
time connecting them not negatively, as in the beginning, to empti-
ness, but positively, to dependent arising. Understanding the na-
ture of dependent arising is itself understanding emptiness and is
itself the understanding of the Four Noble Truths.

It is absolutely critical to understanding the dialectical structure
not only of this chapter but of the entire text to see that this
doctrine of the emptiness of emptiness that is the central thesis of
Madhyamika philosophy emerges directly from XXIV: 18. For the
emptiness of emptiness, as we have just seen, simply amounts to
the identification of emptiness with the property of being depen-
dency arisen ^nd with the property of having an identity just in
virtue of conventional, verbal designation. It is the fact that empti-
ness is no more than this that makes it empty, just as it is the fact
that conventional phenomena in general are no more than conven-
tional and no more than their parts and status in the causal nexus
that makes them empty.

Paradox may appear to loom at this point. For, one might argue,
if emptiness is empty, and to be empty is to be merely conven-
tional, then the emptiness of any phenomenon is a merely conven-
tional fact. Moreover, to say that entities are merely conventional
is merely conventional. Hence it would appear optional, as all
conventions are. Hence it would seem to be open to say that things
are in fact nonconventional and therefore nonempty. This would

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

319

be a deep incoherence indeed at the heart of Nagarjuna’s system.
But the paradox is merely apparent. The appearance of paradox
derives from seeing “conventional” as functioning logically like a
negation operator — a subtle version of the nihilistic reading Nagar-
juna is at pains to avoid, with a metalinguistic twist. For then, each
iteration of “conventional” would cancel the previous occurrence,
and the conventional character of the fact that things are conven-
tional would amount to the claim that really they are not, or at
least that they might not be. But in Nagarjuna’s philosophical
approach, the sense of the term is more ontological than logical: To
say of a phenomenon or of a fact that it is conventional is to
characterize its mode of subsistence. It is to say that it is without an
independent nature. The fact that a phenomenon is without inde-
pendent nature is, to be sure, a further phenomenon — a higher
order fact. But that fact, too, is without an independent nature. It,
too, is merely conventional. This is another way of putting the
strongly nominalistic character of Madhyamika philosophy.

So a Platonist, for instance, might urge (and the Madhyamika
would agree) that a perceptible phenomenon is ultimately unreal.
But the Platonist would assert that its properties are ultimately
real. And if some Buddhist-influenced Platonist would note that
among the properties of a perceptible phenomenon is its emptiness
and its conventional reality, s/he would assert that these, as proper-
ties, are ultimately real. This is exactly where Nagarjuna parts
company with all forms of realism. For he gives the properties a
nominalistic construal and asserts that they, including the proper-
ties of emptiness and conventionality, are, like all phenomena,
merely nominal, merely empty, and merely conventional. And so
on for their emptiness and conventionality. The nominalism under-
cuts the negative interpretation of “conventional” and thereby ren-
ders the regress harmless.

So the doctrine of the emptiness of emptiness can be seen as
inextricably linked with Nagarjuna’s distinctive account of the rela-
tion between the two truths. For Nagarjuna, as is also evident in
this crucial verse, it is a mistake to distinguish conventional from
ultimate reality — the dependently arisen from emptiness — at an
ontological level. Emptiness just is the emptiness of conventional
phenomena. To perceive conventional phenomena as empty is just

320

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

to see them as conventional and as dependently arisen. The
difference — such as it is — between the conventional and the ulti-
mate is a difference in the way phenomena are conceived/per-
ceived. The point must be formulated with some delicacy and
cannot be formulated without a hint of the paradoxical about it:
Conventional phenomena are typically represented as inherently
existent. We typically perceive and conceive of external phenom-
ena, ourselves, causal powers, moral truths, and so forth as inde-
pendently existing, intrinsically identifiable, and substantial. But
though this is, in one sense, the conventional character of conven-
tional phenomena — the manner in which they are ordinarily
experienced — to see them this way is precisely not to see them as
conventional. To see that they are merely conventional, in the
sense adumbrated above and defended by Nagarjuna and his fol-
lowers, is thereby to see them as empty, and this is their ultimate
mode of existence. These are the two truths about phenomena: On
the one hand, they are conventionally existent and the things we
ordinarily say about them are in fact true, to the extent that we get
it right on the terms of the everyday. Snow is indeed white, and
there are indeed tables and chairs in this room. On the other hand,
they are ultimately nonexistent. These two truths seem as different
as night and day — being and nonbeing. But the import of this
chapter and the doctrine we have been explicating is that their
ultimate nonexistence and their conventional existence are the
same thing. Hence the deep identity of the two truths. And this is
because emptiness is not other than dependent arising and, hence,
because emptiness is empty.

Finally, at this stage we can see why Chapter I opens the text.
The discussion of the emptiness of conditions and their relation to
their effects is not only essential groundwork for this central argu-
ment, but in fact anticipates it and brings its conclusion to bear
implicitly on the whole remainder of the text, allowihg us, once we
see that, to read the entire text as asserting not only the emptiness
of phenomena, but that emptiness understood as empty. To see
this, note that this entire account depends upon the emptiness of
dependent origination itself. Suppose for a moment that one had
the view that dependent arising were nonempty (not a crazy view
and not obviously incompatible with, and arguably entailed by,

Examination of the Four Noble Truths

321

certain Buddhist doctrines). Then from the identification of empti-
ness with dependent arising would follow the nonemptiness of
emptiness. Moreover, if conventional phenomena are empty, and
dependent arising itself is nonempty and is identified with empti-
ness, then the two truths are indeed two in every sense. Emptiness-
dependent arising is self-existent, while ordinary phenomena are
not, and one gets a strongly dualistic, ontological version of an
appearance-reality distinction. So the argument for the emptiness
of emptiness in Chapter XXIV and the identity of the two truths
with which it is bound up depend critically on the argument for the
emptiness of dependent origination developed in Chapter I.

Having developed this surprising and deep thesis regarding the
identity of the two truths, Nagarjuna turns in the next chapter to
the nature of the relation between saipsara and nirvana and the
nature of nirvana itself.

Chapter XXV

Examination of Nirvana

This chapter continues the study of the nature of what are often
thought of as ultimate realities and that of their relation to the
conventional world. It follows quite naturally on the preceding
chapter, which considered the relation between emptiness and the
conventional world. For insight into emptiness is, from the stand-
point of Madhyamika philosophy, an important precondition for
entry into nirvana. And just as the ultimate truth is related to the
conventional as an understanding of the way things really are as
opposed to the way they appear to be, nirvana is related to saipsara
as a state of awareness of things as they are as opposed to a state of
awareness of things as they appear to be. But given the results of
Chapter XXIV, and the surprising identification in entity of the
conventional with the ultimate and the doctrine of the emptiness of
emptiness, one might well wonder about the status of nirvana. Is it
no different from saipsara? If it is, how, and how is it related to
saipsara? If not, why pursue it, or better, why aren’t we already
there? Is nirvana empty? If not, how does it escape the Mad-
hyamika dialectic? If it is, can it really be different from saipsara?

Nagarjuna begins the examination with a challenge from the
reificationist, raised by the previous chapter:

1. If all this is empty,

Then there is no arising or passing away.

Examination of Nirvana

323

By the relinquishing or ceasing of what
Does one wish nirvana to arise?

Nirvana is defined as a state one achieves when delusion and
grasping cease, and when one relinquishes saqisara and its entities.
But if there is neither self, nor object, nor delusion, nor grasping,
who relinquishes what, and in what manner? Moreover, if there is
no arising or passing away from the ultimate point of view, how can
nirvana arise or saipsara pass away? Nagarjuna replies, using the
same dialectical strategy deployed in the previous chapter:

2. If all this is nonempty,

Then there is no arising or passing away.

By the relinquishing or ceasing of what
Does one wish nirvana to arise?

Nirvana would be precluded not by the emptiness of saipsara,
but rather by its inherent existence. For then it could not pass
away. Nor could an inherently grasping grasper relinquish grasp-
ing, or an inherently existent delusion be alleviated. The achieve-
ment of nirvana requires dependence, impermanence, and the pos-
sibility of change, all of which are grounded in emptiness.

3. Unrelinquished, unattained,

Unannihilated, not permanent,

Unarisen, unceased:

This is how nirvana is described.

It is important that these predicates are all negative in character,
and that they are all expressed, both in Sanskrit and in the Tibetan
translation, with explicitly negative particles (Skt: a, Tib: med-pa).
The point is that no ascription of any predicate to nirvana, for
Nagarjuna, can be literally true. For such a predication would
purport to be an assertion that nirvana is an ultimately existent
phenomenon with a determinate property, and there are no ulti-
mately existent phenomena, not even nirvana. Because nirvana
can only be spoken of by contrasting it in some sense with saipsara
and because there is no conventionally existent perceptible entity

324

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

that could serve as a referent for the term, there is the terrible
temptation when speaking of nirvana to think that, to the extent
that one is saying anything true of it in any sense, one is literally
asserting an ultimate truth about an inherently existent thing or
state. One forgets that once one transcends the bounds of conven-
tion, there is no possibility of assertion. 125

The discussion in XXV: 4-18 is framed by the tetralemma that
would follow from considering nirvana to be something indepen- '
dent about which something could be said; or as a proper subject
for a theory; or as a genuine alternative to saipsara, from which it
is inherently different. If it were so, it would have to either be
existent, nonexistent, both, or neither. (Note that here Nagarjuna
uses the terms “existent”/“non-existent” in both their adjectival
and nominal forms [Tib: dngos/dngos-minlldngos-poldngos-med ,
Skt: bhava/bhavol/abhava/abhavo ] deliberately calling attention to
their correlation. I have generally translated the Tibetan “dngos-
po” as “entity*’ throughout this text. But for the purposes of this
discussion in order to highlight the structure of the text, I switch in
the next few verses to “existent.”) Nagarjuna will now argue that
none of these alternatives is possible.

4. Nirvana is not existent.

It would then have the characteristics of age and death.

There is no existent entity
Without age and death.

Nirvana is negatively characterized as release from sarpsara and
the constant flux, aging, death, and rebirth it comprises. But that
means that since all entities have these characteristics, nirvana can-
not be thought of as an existent entity. And here we must be very
careful: The point isn’t that nirvana can’t be thought of as inherently
existent. For inherently existent entities, if there were such things,
would not have these characteristics. In this discussion, Nagarjuna
is rejecting the notion that nirvana can be thought of as existent in
any sense at all — even as a conventional entity. That is why we must
be so careful in our discourse — very careful indeed — for, as we shall

125. See Streng (1973), chap. 5.

Examination of Nirvana

325

see in a moment, neither do we want to say that nirvana is nonexis-
tent. But moreover, Nagarjuna will want in another sense to identify
nirvana and saqisara (see XXV: 19, 20 below), and there is clearly a
sense in which we can say that samsaric phenomena exist and a sense
in which we can say that they do not. (Again, see the discussion of
the positive tetralemma in XVIII: 8 above.) The point here is that
though things seen from the standpoint of saipsara and from the
standpoint of nirvana are not different in entity, from the standpoint
of saipsara they can be characterized and appear as entities . But
from the standpoint of nirvapa, no characterization is possible since
that involves the dualities and dichotomies introduced by language,
including the positing of entities and characteristics, as well as their
contraries and complements. These have only conventional and
nominal existence, and no existence at all from the standpoint of
nirvana. (See also the discussion of XXVII: 30 below.) In a sense
this discussion can be seen as a useful commentary on chapter IX of
the Vimilakirti-nirdefa-sutra and, in particular, on the dramatic con-
cluding remarks by ManjuSri and nonremarks by Vimalakirti on the
subject of nonduality and insight into emptiness: Manjusri indicates
that the distinction between the conventional and ultimate is itself
dualistic and hence merely conventional. To realize it is hence to en-
ter into nondual awareness of emptiness. He then asks Vimalakirti
to comment on nonduality. Vimalakirti remains silent. 126

5. If nirvana were existent,

Nirvana would be compounded.
A non-compounded existent
Does not exist anywhere.

126. His Holiness the Dalai Lama in oral remarks (Columbia University 1994)
notes that “The ultimate nature of things — emptiness — is also unknowable, in that
one cannot comprehend it as it is known in direct apprehension in meditation.”
Nayak (1979) writes:

Being firmly entrenched in Sunyata and realizing that language has only a conven-
tional use, an ary a or a philosopher regards silence or noncommitment as the
highest good or paramartha. And the attainment of paramartha in this sense, not
in the sense of a transcendent reality, constitutes an essential feature of nirvana
or liberation, (p. 478)

326

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

All empirical phenomena are compounded. But being com-
pounded involves phenomena in the round of saipsara. For since
the recognition of compounds as unitary phenomena demands
conventions of aggregation, to be compounded is, ipso facto, to
have a merely conventional existence. And it is the treatment of
merely conventional, nominally existent phenomena as inherently
existent entities that generates saipsara. That is because from the
standpoint of Buddhist soteriological theory, the foundation of
suffering — the basic condition of saipsara — is craving and the
foundation of craving is the root delusion of taking to be inher-
ently existent — and so worthy of being craved — that which is
merely conventionally, or nominally existent. We are hence trapped
in saipsara exactly to the extent that we mistake the convention-
ally existent as inherently existent. So given the contrast between
nirvana and samsara and the fact that everything in saipsara is
compounded, nirvana cannot be compounded. So it is not exis-
tent, even conventionally.

6. If nirvapa were existent,

How could nirvana be nondependent?

A nondependent existent
Does not exist anywhere.

Saipsara and dependent arising go hand in hand. For a phenome-
non to be dependent is for it to be impermanent and for it to be
subject to destruction. (See the discussion in Chapter XV.) Nirvana
is supposed to be beyond all this. It is, by definition, liberation from
all that characterizes saipsara. So again, nirvana cannot be a conven-
tionally existent entity. (It is important to see that there is a sense in
which nirvana is dependent and a sense in which it is independent,
and these are not contradictory: Nirvana is achieved in dependence
upon the practice of the path and the accumulation of wisdom and
merit. But once attained, inasmuch as from the standpoint of
nirvana there are no entities at all, there is nothing on which nirvana
can be said to depend. In this sense it is nondependent.) But all of
this raises the obvious possibility that nirvana is simply not real at
all — that it is completely nonexistent. This possibility is considered
and rejected in the next two verses:

Examination of Nirvana

327

7. If nirvana were not existent,

How could it be appropriate for it to be nonexistent?

Where nirvana is not existent,

It cannot be a nonexistent.

To say that nirvana possesses the positive property of nonexis-
tence is not coherent either. For then there would be nothing to
which the predicate “nonexistent” could in fact apply. Note the
difference between saying, in the sense relevant here, “nirvana is
nonexistent” and “Santa Claus does not exist.” The latter, Nagar-
juna would certainly agree, is not only coherent but true. But in
explaining the semantics of the latter, we can posit a concept of
Santa Claus and interpret the sentence as asserting that that con-
cept is not instantiated. But when, in trying to characterize
nirvana, one is tempted to say that it is a nonexistent, this is in
response to the difficulty we have just noted in asserting that
nirvana in fact exists. The temptation is to assert then that it is real,
but has some kind of ghostly reality as a substratum of the property
“nonexistent.” But that is simply incoherent — an attempt to have
it both ways. So the predicate “does not exist” cannot, in this case,
even be applied. If there is no nirvana at all, there is no such basis
of predication. Even this apparently negative discourse about
nirvana is then blocked, to the degree that it is taken literally as
positive attribution of a negative predicate.

8. If nirvana were not existent,

How could nirvana be nondependent?

Whatever is nondependerit

Is not nonexistent.

Moreover, Nagarjuna reminds us, one of the reasons that we
rejected the view that nirvana is an entity in the first place is that it
is nondependent. The latter assertion is, of course, intended in a
merely negative sense— a denial of the possibility of characterizing
nirvana as dependent, or of recognizing dependent phenomena or
dependency from the standpoint of nirvana. But to the extent that
we can make sense of nonexistence as a positive attribute, it would
have to be the attribute of something. And as we have seen —

328

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

especially in Chapters VII, XXII, and XXIV— entities can only be
conceived as dependent. So if something is nondependent, it can’t
also be a real nonexistent! In the next two verses, Nagarjuna
reframes the problem about the ontological status of nirvana in
preparation for consideration of the final two tetralemma possibili-
ties for nirvapa — that it is both existent and nonexistent and that it
is neither existent nor nonexistent:

9. That which comes and goes
Is dependent and changing.

That, when it is not dependent and changing,

Is taught to be nirvana.

10. The teacher has spoken of relinquishing
Becoming and dissolution.

Therefore, it makes sense that

Nirvana is neither existent nor nonexistent.

Nirvana is here again explicitly characterized only by contrast
with saipsara. While it therefore cannot be an entity of the kind with
which saipsara is populated, it is, as the release from saipsara, not
completely nonexistent. So it can neither be conceived of conven-
tionally or ultimately as a thing, nor coherently asserted not to exist.
In fact, as XXV: 9 emphasizes with eloquence, the very same world
is saipsara or nirvana, dependent upon one’s perspective. When one
perceives the constant arising and ceasing of phenomena, one per-
ceives saipsara. When all reification is abandoned, that world and
one’s mode of living in it, becomes nirvana. 127 Nagarjuna now con-
siders the possibility that nirvana is both existent and nonexistent:

11. If nirvana were both
Existent and nonexistent.

Passing beyond would, impossibly,

Be both existent and nonexistent.

This would entail that it is contradictory. And it is absurd to
assign anything contradictory properties. Moreover, having seen

127. See Yuktisajtika 11 for another presentation of this view.

Examination of Nirvana

329

that each of the conjuncts is individually impossible, their conjunc-
tion, even were it not a conjunction of contradictories, could cer-
tainly not be coherent. In particular, we don’t want to say that one
does and does not pass into nirvana upon release from saipsara.

12. If nirvana were both

Existent and nonexistent,

Nirvana would not be nondependent.

Since it would depend on both of these.

But since both existent and nonexistent entities are dependent,
as Nagarjuna has argued in XXV: 6, 8, if nirvana were both exis-
tent and nonexistent it would be doubly dependent. It would de-
pend both on existent and nonexistent phenomena.

13. How could nirvana

Be both existent and nonexistent?

Nirvaoa is uncompounded.

Both existents and nonexistents are compounded.

Moreover, not only are existents compounded — that is made up
of parts or given rise to by causes — but genuine nonexistents are
compounded as well — their nonexistence is determined by the na-
ture of other things; if real, they would be composed of parts. A
nonexistent elephant is composed of a nonexistent trunk, tusks,
and so forth.

14. How could nirvana

Be both existent and nonexistent?

These two cannot be in the same place.

Like light and darkness.

This verse simply sums up the results of the previous three:
There is simply no way to avoid manifest contradiction if one takes
this horn of the tetralemma. Nagarjuna now considers the final
possibility — that nirvana is neither existent nor nonexistent: 128

128. See also Padhye (1988), pp. 109-14, for a concise discussion of Nagarjuna’s
treatment of the tetralemma of existence/nonexistence with respect to nirvana.

330

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

15. Nirvana is said to be

Neither existent nor nonexistent.

If the existent and the nonexistent were established,

This would be established

But this can’t be so either. For really to assert this as the nature
of nirvana would be to suppose that both of these possibilities ^
made sense with respect to it, but that neither happened to be
realized. But it makes no sense for nirvana to exist. And it makes
no sense for it not to exist. So of each, the negation can’t be
assigned any coherent meaning. And conjoining two pieces of non-
sense only yields further nonsense.

16. If nirvana is

Neither existent nor nonexistent,

Then by whom is it expounded
“Neither existent nor nonexistent”?

If this could be coherently asserted, it would have to be asserted
either by one in nirvana or one not. But, as is emphasized in the
next verse, this has never been asserted by anyone certifiably in
nirvapa. And if it is asserted by someone in saqisara, we have no
particular reason to believe it.

17. Having passed into nirvana, the Victorious Conqueror
Is neither said to be existent

Nor said to be nonexistent.

Neither both nor neither are said.

18. So, when the victorious one abides, he
Is neither said to be existent

Nor said to be nonexistent.

Neither both nor neither are said.

None of the four tetralemma possibilities can be asserted. Just as
in Chapter XXII, we see that when things are plausibly posited by an
interlocutor as ultimates, Nagarjuna resorts to a negative tetra-
lemma. This emphasizes that all discourse is only possible from the
conventional point of view. When we try to say something coherent

Examination of Nirvana

331

about the nature of things from an ultimate standpoint, we end up
talking nonsense. 129 But recall the discussion of emptiness and con-
vention in chapter XXIV: We can develop an understanding of
emptiness in relation to conventional reality, of emptiness as empty:
Emptiness seen that way simply is the lack of essence of the conven-
tional. Its own emptiness is the fact that it itself is no more than that.
Seeing the conventional as conventional, we argued, is to see it as it
is ultimately. At this point, Nagarjuna makes a similar move with
regard to nirvana and draws one of the most startling conclusions of
the Mulamadhyamakakarika: Just as there is no difference in entity
between the conventional and the ultimate, there is no difference in
entity between nirvana and saipsara; nirvana is simply saipsara seen
without reification, without attachment, without delusion. The rea-
son that we cannot say anything about nirvana as an independent,
nonsamsaric entity, then, is not that it is such an entity, but that it is
ineffable and unknowable. 130 Rather it is because it is only saipsara
seen as it is, just as emptiness is just the conventional seen as it is:

19. There is not the slightest difference
Between cyclic Existence and nirvana.

There is not the slightest difference
Between nirvapa and cyclic existence.

20. Whatever is the limit of nirvana,

That is the limit of cyclic existence.

There is not even the slightest difference between them,

Or even the subtlest thing.

To distinguish between saipsara and nirvana would be to sup-
pose that each had a nature and that they were different natures.
But each is empty, and so there can be no inherent difference.
Moreover, since nirvana is by definition the cessation of delusion
and of grasping and, hence, of the reification of self and other and
of confusing imputed phenomena for inherently real phenomena,

129. See Nagao (1991), pp, 42-43, for a similar account.

130. This reading contrasts with that of Inada (1970), who asserts that nirvana,
in fact, is transcendent, belonging to a wholly different ontological realm. I find his
reading very difficult to reconcile with XXV: 19, 20 or indeed, with any of Chapters
XXII, XXIV, or XXV.

332

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

it is by definition the recognition of the ultimate nature of things.
But if, as Nagarjuna argued in Chapter XXIV, this is simply to see
conventional things as empty, not to see some separate emptiness
behind them, then nirvana must be ontologically grounded in the
conventional. To be in saipsara is to see things as they appear to
deluded consciousness and to interact with them accordingly. To be
in nirvana, then, is to see those things as they are — as merely
empty, dependent, impermanent, and nonsubstantial, but not to
be somewhere else, seeing something else . 131

Another way of distinguishing between saipsara and nirvana is to
think of them somehow as different places, as Earth and Heaven are
often conceived in Western religious traditions and then to think
that upon attaining nirvapa one leaves this place — disappears — and
goes there. Of course, if one thinks at all about the career of the
historical Buddha Sakyamuni, that would entail that upon attaining
enlightenment, he would have disappeared. This would make some-
thing of a hash of the Buddhist canon. But Nagarjuna is emphasizing
that nirvana is not someplace else. It is a way of being here.

Here is another way to put the somewhat paradoxical point:
Nagarjuna surely thinks that in nirvapa, unlike saipsara, one per-
ceives emptiness and not entities; one perceives the ultimate truth
and not the conventional truth . 132 But emptiness is only the empti-

131. Compare Streng (1973):

...[A] problem occurs when we act inappropriately to the empty (non-svabhava)
set of conditions that allow saipskrta to arise. This inappropriateness is our acting
as if we could discern a self-existent thing either in the conditioned ‘thing’ or in
some identifiable ‘element’ of our experience. . . . Contrariwise, the insight that
leads to the cessation of these inappropriate acts is an awareness that the condi-
tions and relations by which we define our experience are empty, (p. 30)

Nayak (1979) puts it this way: “Nirvana is thus nondifferent from critical insight par
excellence which is free from all essentialist picture-thinking” (p. 489).

132. Though it is standard doctrine that a buddha, in virtue of being omni-
scient (setting aside the vexed and controversial question of the nature of this
omniscience — a matter of considerable debate within Buddhist philosophy), per-
ceives all conventional phenomena and knows all conventional truths, as well as
all ultimate truths. But a buddha does not know conventional truths and perceive
conventional phenomena in the same way that a nonenlightened being does. A
buddha knows them and perceives them as conventional and sees them at the
same time as empty, through an immediate knowledge of the unity of the two
truths. A non-buddha, by contrast, even if s/he knows that conventional phenom-

Examination of Nirvana

333

ness of all entities, and the ultimate truth is merely the essenceless
essence of those conventional things. So nirvana is only saipsara
experienced as a buddha experiences it. It is the person who enters
nirvana, but as a state of being, not as a place to be . 133

21. Views that after cessation there is a limit, etc. ,

And that it is permanent, etc.,

Depend upon nirvana, the final limit,

And the prior limit.

The kind of metaphysical speculations that the Buddha discour-
aged in the famous discussion of the unanswerable questions regard-
ing the origins and limits of the world and what lies beyond the
universe in space and time, are grounded, Nagarjuna asserts, in the
view that cyclic existence — the entire phenomenal world— can be
conceived as an entity against which stand other entities or other
regions. This is the same kind of picture that motivates the view that
nirvana is someplace or something beyond cyclic existence or that
nirvaija is bounded or eternal. But there is no vantage point from
which the universe is one place among many. That is why talking
about what lies beyond it is nonsense and why reifying or characteriz-
ing nirvana temporally is one example of that nonsense.

22. Since all existents are empty,

What is finite or infinite?

What is finite and infinite?

What is neither finite nor infinite?

23. What is identical and what is different?

What is permanent and what is impermanent?

What is both permanent and impermanent?

What is neither?

ena are empty, through studying Madhyamika philosophy, perceives them as inher-
ently existent and only reasons her/himself into the knowledge that these phenom-
ena are really empty and that these truths are merely conventional.

133. Kalupahana (1986) reads this verse differently. He translates it as follows:
“Whatever is the extremity of freedom and the extremity of the life-process, be-
tween them not even a subtle something is evident.” He then takes the purport to
be the denial of any entity such as a “seed of release” mediating between the states
of saixisara and nirvdna (p. 36?)

334

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Again Nagarjuna uses negative tetralemmas to emphasize that
while of conventional entities a good deal can be said, so long as
we take the predications to be asserted in a conventional, relative
sense, the moment we try to conceive of things as they are ulti-
mately, as empty, such assertion has to stop. That is not, again, to
say that things are nonempty. Far from it. But it is to say that literal
description applies only within the bounds of conception and that
attempts to develop a metaphysics of the ultimate are doomed . 134

24. The pacification of all objectification
And the pacification of illusion:

No Dharma was taught by the Buddha
At any time, in any place, to any person.

In many Buddhist teachings many conventional phenomena are
described and are subjected to analysis, including the mind, mental
phenomena, and a wide range of external phenomena. But this is
always a conventional analysis intended to demonstrate the empti-
ness of these phenomena, their impermanent character, and so
forth, for soteriological purposes. The goal is to dispel illusion and
to end deluded ontological fabrication and the various epistemo-
logical, psychological, and moral ills Nagarjuna has argued are
grounded therein. But it is important, Nagarjuna concludes, not to
reify that doctrine, or any of the entities that appear as prima facie
referents of the words used to expound it (the Buddha, the spiri-
tual community, etc.,). In fact, it is important to see that nirvana
does not, on this account, amount to an entity; it is not achieved or
described by entities. Rather it is a way of engagement with nonen-
tities by nonentities.

134. Padhye (1988) points out (pp. 68-70) that Nagarjuna should also be read
here and in this chapter as a whole as emphasizing that, in virtue of the emptiness of
all phenomena in samsdra and of the self that experiences them, nirvana, which is
defined simply as that self’s liberation from positing those phenomena, must be
equally empty. For it, too, can only be understood as a characteristic of that empty
self and of its relation to empty phenomena.

Chapter XXVI

Examination of the Twelve Links

Given an analysis of the nature of nirvana, one might well ask how
to achieve it. In this chapter, Nagarjuna provides a straightforward
answer. The twelve links of dependent origination are regarded by
all Buddhist schools as providing an analysis of the nature of inter-
dependence in the context of human existence. The tone of this
chapter is decidedly positive, marking the turning of a dialectical
corner in the preceding two chapters. Having elucidated the
Madhyamika account of the nature of conventional and ultimate
reality, Nagarjuna does not need at this point so much to empha-
size the emptiness of the twelve links. Rather he can assume that to
provide an account of them as dependently arisen is, ipso facto, to
demonstrate that fact. Their emptiness is therefore simply presup-
posed. This chapter is thus a straightforward exposition of how, in
light of the interdependence of the twelve links, to enter into and
to exploit the cycle in the service of liberation.

1. Wrapped in the darkness of ignorance,

One performs the three kinds of actions
Which as dispositions impel one
To continue to future existences.

One is caught in cyclic existence for a reason, Nagarjuna asserts,
because one acts. There are three general kinds of actions distin-

336

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

guished in Buddhist action theory — physical, verbal, and mental.
These actions in turn have immediate psychological consequences
for the agent. That is, they give rise to new psychological disposi-
tions. In the framework of Buddhist action theory, these disposi-
tions are themselves conceived of as actions existing in a potential
form, and of course when actualized, they emerge as new actions
of body, speech, or mind. These in turn lead to a variety of new
such consequences and to the continuation of cyclic existence. 135
Transmigration — the continuation of saipsara — for Nagarjuna is
then simply a dependent consequence of one’s actions.

2. Having dispositions as its conditions.

Consciousness enters transmigration.

Once consciousness has entered transmigration,

Name and form come to be.

Continuing through the traditional presentation of the twelve
links, Nagarjuna notes that consciousness is a consequence of dis-
positions and depends upon them and that “name and form’ fol-
low as a consequence of consciousness. These, therefore, are obvi-
ously also dependent phenomena.

There are two ways to think of the twelve links, generating two
parallel circles of explanation: One can approach them from the
standpoint of transmigration, which provides a standard Buddhist
explanation of the cycle of life. Or one can think of them as provid-
ing a phenomenological analysis of the nature of experience. In the
former sense, we could say at this point in the story that actions
performed in the past and dispositions inherited from one’s previ-
ous history lead to new actions whose consequences are cyclic
existence. In particular, the actions and dispositions from one’s
prior life, on this view, lead to the generation of a new conscious-
ness, which upon entering the womb, gives rise to a body that will
get a particular name.

Or, from a phenomenological perspective, we can see disposi-
tions to attend to or to interpret particular phenomena in certain

135. The term "las" (Skt: karma) hence refers both to action and to the conse-
quences of action for the individual.

Examination of the Twelve Links

337

ways (perceptual or conceptual “sets”) and actions upon them lead-
ing to our becoming aware of external or internal phenomena (con-
sciousness) , which leads to our representing them as having determi-
nate locations and denominations (name and form) . These two levels
of analysis are obviously quite compatible, and while the former
plays a central role in Buddhist cosmological and soteriological
theory, the latter is important in Buddhist psychology and practice.

3. Once name and form come to be,

The six sense spheres come into being.

Depending on the six sense spheres,

Contact comes into being.

From the ontogenetic side, the development of the body gives
rise to the development of the sense faculties, which make
sensation — contact between sense objects and functioning sense
organs — possible. From the phenomenological point of view, we
can say that the domain of perceptibles and the structure of percep-
tual experience and knowledge depends upon our ability to repre-
sent and individuate objects, and that sensory contact is sensory
contact in the first place only in virtue of its role in experience,
which is in turn dependent upon the entire perceptual process. To
put the matter crudely, an amputated sense organ in contact with
an object is hardly in contact in the appropriate way.

4. That is only dependent

On eye and form and apprehension.

Thus, depending on name and form,

And which produces consciousness —

The first two lines emphasize that contact — that is, the initial
relation between the sense organ and its object — has three neces-
sary and sufficient conditions: sense organ, the object, and the
cognitive state to which the sense organ gives rise (apprehension/
dr an byed). The last two lines are continuous with the next verse:

5. That which is assembled from the three —

Eye and form and consciousness,

338

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Is contact. From contact
Feeling comes to be.

It is important to note that this occurrence of “consciousness”
{mam-par shes-pa) in fact refers to the apprehension of the previ-
ous verse, which is in Buddhist psychology a form of conscious-
ness. But it should not be confused with the consciousness whose
condition is contact, on pain of a hopeless explanatory tangle.
Contact, as we have seen, is dependent upon the existence of the
organ, the object, and the functioning of the sense faculty. Depen-
dent upon that contact is sensation. The exposition here is per-
fectly traditional. It only derives its punch from the context: In
light of the connection that has been developed between the depen-
dence that is central to this model and emptiness, the entire
Theravada model of the nature of the phenomenal world comes to
look like an analysis in terms of emptiness.

6. Conditioned by feeling is craving.

Craving arises because of feeling.

When it appears, there is grasping,

The four spheres of grasping.

Pleasurable sensations lead to craving; painful ones lead to crav-
ing for their end. That craving leads to grasping — an attempt to
appropriate and make one’s own the source of pleasure or the
means for the alleviation of pain, and to excessive valuation of the
grasped object. The four spheres probably denote the four realms —
the desire, the form, the formless, and the pure, entities in each of
which could be the objects of grasping.

7. When there is grasping, the grasper
Comes into existence.

If he did not grasp,

Then being freed, he would not come into existence.

The identity of the individual as a grasper — and hence as a
deluded actor in the world and an agent of the continuation of
saipsara — depends upon this grasping. As Nagarjuna argued in
Chapters VI and XVI, without grasping, there is no grasper.

Examination of the Twelve Links

339

8. This existence is also the five aggregates.

From existence comes birth,

Old age and death and misery and

Suffering and grief and . . .

9. Confusion and agitation.

All these arise as a consequence of birth.

Thus this entire mass of suffering

Comes into being.

But moreover, the account that emerges so far of the nature of
human existence — one involving a body, sensations, perception,
dispositions, and consciousness — is just the account of personal
existence in terms of the five aggregates into which standard Bud-
dhist psychology analyzes the person. So this account so far is an
account of the conditions that give rise to human existence. But
human existence gives rise to human births, and these eventually
give rise to aging, to pain and suffering, and eventually to death
and the consequent grief of one’s loved ones. This part of the story,
of course, is central to making the case for the first two noble
truths.

We are bom with dispositions to reify, to crave, and to grasp, all
of which, on this analysis, lead directly to suffering — to the pain of
wanting what we cannot have, of not wanting what we do have, of
grasping onto permanence in an impermanent world, of cherishing
our own existence and interests in a world where they are minor
affairs, and of grasping for independence and freedom in a condi-
tioned universe.

10. The root of cyclic existence is action.

Therefore, the wise one does not act. 136

136. “ *du byed” (Skt. : samsk&ra ). This term is often translated in this text as
“disposition.” It can also mean “to compound” or “compounded phenomenon.”
Here it must function as a verb. Both Streng (1967) and Inada (1970) prefer the
reading “to compound” or “to construct.” But given Nagarjuna’s theory of action,
as we have seen, dispositions and actions are of a kind. And what generates the
karma that creates and maintains cyclic existence is action. Hence, I read the term
here as denoting action and disposition together, via its primary meaning, “disposi-
tion.” This receives further support from the use of the nominal “byed-po, ” which is
cognate with the compound “ ’du byed” and is most naturally translated as “agent.”

340

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Therefore, the unwise is the agent.

The wise one is not because of his insight.

The place to pick up the tangle in order to unravel it, from the
standpoint of practice, Nagarjuna suggests, is with action and dis-
position, here comprised together under the single term “action”
( 'du byed), which in this context conveys not only the unity of
action and disposition as seen from the soteriological point of view,
but also their role in creating or bringing about future existence.
These are most easily controlled through philosophical reflection,
through meditation, and through assiduous practices of various
virtues. By changing the way that we act physically, verbally, and
mentally, we thereby change the way that we perceive, think, and
act and thereby change what we see and the consequences of our
actions.

11. With the cessation of ignorance
Action will not arise.

The cessation of ignorance occurs through
Meditation and wisdom.

But in order really to modify our actions and dispositions to act,
we need wisdom — in this context an understanding of the real
nature of things, which for Nagarjuna means the view of all things
as empty. This view, Nagarjuna asserts, must be internalized
through meditation, so that it becomes not merely a philosophical
theory that we can reason our way into, but the basic way in which
we take up with the world. Accomplishing that, he asserts, leads to
the cessation of that activity responsible for the perpetuation of the
suffering of saipsara.

12. Through the cessation of this and that
This and that will not be manifest.

It is important, however, to bear in mind that NSgarjuna is discussing actions and
dispositions together as a unitary phenomenon and thinking of them — as the transla-
tions of Inada and Sprung bring to the fore — as that which constructs or creates our
future existence. dGe dun-grub agrees with this reading, as does Je Tsong Khapa. I
am indebted to the Ven. Sherab Gyatso for convincing me of this.

Examination of the Twelve Links

341

The entire mass of suffering
Indeed thereby completely ceases.

And this is not only the analysis Nagarjuna offers of the world
and of our experience of it, but his final soteriological recommenda-
tion given the doctrine of the emptiness of all phenomena. Human
existence and experience are indeed governed by the twelve links
of dependent origination. But since they are essentially depen-
dent, they are essentially empty and, hence, are impermanent and
subject to change. The twelve links provide an anatomy and an
etiology of suffering. But by understanding their impermanence
and dependency, we also see the cure for that condition. For by
cultivating a clear and accurate philosophical view of the nature of
things — the view so explicitly articulated in Chapter XXIV, by
internalizing that view, and by taking up with the world in accor-
dance with it, we can cease the reification of the “this” and the
“that,” grasping for which binds us to suffering. Nagarjuna argues
that if we can achieve that, we can achieve the nirvana character-
ized in Chapter XXV — a nirvana not found in an escape from the
world but in an enlightened and awakened engagement with it.

Chapter XXVII
Examination of Views

The final chapter of the text, like the previous chapter, applies the
results of the climactic analyses of Chapters XXIV and XXV. It is
noteworthy that all of the classic erroneous views discussed and
refuted in this chapter are refuted earlier in the text. Indeed, Chap-
ters XXIV and XXV are immediately preceded by a chapter on
errors. One might therefore think that this chapter is otiose, or at
least misplaced. For here Nagarjuna considers a range of alterna-
tive metaphysical views conflicting with Nagarjuna’s analysis in
terms of emptiness. These views are all well-known and considered
false by all schools of Buddhist philosophy. So why does Nagarjuna
return to them as a collection at the close of the text?

The previous chapter demonstrated the positive payoff of the
analysis of emptiness and its relation to conventional phenomena.
Nagarjuna there argued that one can exploit emptiness and an
understanding of emptiness in following the path to nirvana. But
the pursuit of the path entails the elimination of error. In fact, it
can negatively be characterized, as we saw in the nirvana chapter,
specifically as the elimination of error. So it is important for
Nagarjuna to show that the analysis developed in XXIV and XXV
can not only promote positive movement toward nirvana but also
the eradication of the erroneous views that bind us to saipsara.
That is the burden of this final chapter. It is also important dialecti-
cally to see that Nagarjuna is demonstrating that the root of all of

Examination of Views

343

these erroneous views is the view that the self or the external world
exist inherently. If, he will argue, one grants either of those claims,
one is stuck with one or more of these errors. It therefore follows
that any view, including any view of any other Buddhist school —
including all of the schools that castigate these views on indepen-
dent grounds — that posits inherently existent entities will succumb
to these errors. Nagarjuna thus concludes by arguing not only that
his position is capable of leading to nirvana, but that it is the only
position capable of doing so.

1. The views “in the past I was” or “I was not”

And the view that the world is permanent, etc.,

All of these views

Depend on a prior limit.

Nagarjuna summarizes the diagnosis he will offer of the error
underlying these metaphysical views: Any view that the self is
permanent or nonexistent or that the world is permanent or nonex-
istent presupposes that one can think coherently about the begin-
ning of time or of identity. For to think of things as permanent
requires us either to posit a beginning of time from which they
existed or to assert that time has no beginning. To think that there
was a past at which the self did not exist or in which the world did
not exist presupposes that we can mark a point at which the world
came into existence or at which there is a definite separation be-
tween a world without the self and a world with the self — an initial
moment of personal existence.

2. The view “in the future I will become other” or “I will not do

so”

And that the world is limited, etc.,

All of these views
Depend on a final limit.

Similarly, such views require us to be able to talk coherently
about the end of the world or the end of personal existence — to be
able to speak of a future time where nothing exists, or of the end of
time, or of an unlimited future existence or of a definite moment

344

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

when the self ceases to exist, whereas before it had existed.
Nagarjuna begins by discussing arguments regarding the self, open-
ing with a set of arguments for the permanence of the self:

3. To say “I was in the past”

Is not tenable.

What existed in the past
Is not identical to this one.

It is a fundamental confusion to think that because I can say that
I or someone or something else existed in the past that there is a
real identity between what exists now and what existed then. Iden-
tity requires that we share all properties, and that is trivially impos-
sible over time. But any assertion of the permanence of the self
requires that we be able to identity it over time.

4. According to you, this self is that,

But the appropriator is different.

If it is not the appropriator,

What is your self?

Suppose that one through introspection or analysis takes some
putative entity — one’s body, one’s stream of consciousness, or
whatever — to be one’s self. There will be in that act a duality of
appropriator and the thing appropriated as the self or as part of the
self. But at different times what is appropriated and what is appro-
priating differ. Both subject and object will necessarily be distinct.
But in order to posit the appropriating entity as the self, it must
retain its identity over time. The sequence of appropriators hence
fails to provide a candidate for a continuing self. But, Nagarjuna
points out, there is no other candidate.

5. Having shown that there is no seif
Other than the appropriator,

The appropriator should be the self.

But it is not your self.

The self that is posited by the advocate of a permanent self is a
substantial entity capable of grasping, not a mere evanescent activ-

Examination of Views

345

ity. So it cannot be the appropriator. Moreover, Nagarjuna points
out in the next verse, the same argument applies, mutatis mutandis,
to the act of appropriation. To identify that with the self would be to
identify agent and action:

6. Appropriating is not the self.

It arises and ceases.

How can one accept that

Future appropriating is the appropriator?

Two problems are developed in this verse: First of all, the self
that the reificationist wishes to posit is a permanent, enduring self.
But appropriating is a momentary action that arises and ceases
constantly with new objects of appropriation. A sequence of such
actions is hardly a substantial subject. This is a straightforwardly
Humean argument. Second, Nagarjuna points out, even if one
argued that the self was substantial and also identical to that se-
quence, there is a further difficulty: The self that is posited by this
interlocutor is an enduring subject of these acts of appropriation.
But some of the members of the sequence have yet to come into
existence. If the self exists entirely at all moments of time, as an
unchanging substantial subject, it cannot be identified with a se-
quence, some of whose members are not presently existent.

7. A self that is different

From the appropriating is not tenable.

If it were different, then in a nonappropriator

There should be appropriation. But there isn’t.

This is a very obscure argument as it is put in the text, but given
the context we can flesh it out: The target position here is one
according to which the existence of appropriation as a real, persis-
tent feature of cyclic existence is used as the basis for attributing
personal identity to a continuing self. That self is not supposed to
be the appropriating itself, but rather a separate entity indepen-
dent of it. Nagarjuna points out, though, that it is, and for the
proponent of this view, it must be possible not to appropriate —
otherwise nirvapa would be impossible. So, there will be a

346

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

nonappropriator who once was an appropriator. But if appropria-
tion is the basis of the identity of the one who has been liberated
with the one who was not, that appropriation should persist in the
nonappropriator, which would be contradictory.

8. So it is neither different from the appropriating

Nor identical to the appropriating.

There is no self without appropriation.

But it is not true that it does not exist.

Thus we cannot use the existence of appropriation as a basis on
which to construct a permanent self. For that self cannot be both
permanent and identified with such a constantly changing activity.
But still, that is all there is to the self. This raises the possibility
that it would be correct to say that the self does not persist at all —
that there is no existent person in any sense. It is to this view that
Nagarjuna now turns. He first announces the conclusion — that it is
not correct to say that the person who now exists did not exist in
the past. There is a sense in which that person is identical with his/
her past stages:

9. To say “in the past I wasn’t"’

Would not be tenable.

This person is not different

From whoever existed in previous times.

10. If this one were different,

Then if that one did not exist, I would still exist.

If this were so,

Without death, one would be born.

If there were a genuine difference in entity between the current
stage and the previous stages of a person, they would be indepen-
dent. If that were so, the current stage — since if it depends on
anything, depends on the previous stage — would come into exis-
tence depending on nothing. That is, it would be possible for none
of my previous stages to exist, but for me, as the person with my
past, to pop into existence ex nihilo. Or, on the other hand, it
would be possible, if the current stage and previous stages were

Examination of Views

347

completely different and independent, for the current stage to
come into existence without the previous stage having passed out
of existence, which is absurd.

11. Annihilation and the exhaustion of action would follow;

Different agents’ actions

Would be experienced by each other.

That and other such things would follow.

We could make no sense of the actual empirical fact of conven-
tional personal identity; action done at one moment would be done
by one person, and that person would experience none of its conse-
quences. To the extent that we could make sense of them at all, the
phenomena of memory and experiencing the consequences of
one’s previous actions would become interpersonal affairs, which
seems at least a bit odd.

12. Nothing comes to exist from something that did not exist.

From this errors would arise.

The self would be produced

Or, existing, would be without a cause.

Moreover, since the past, as per the discussion of time in Chap-
ter XIX and the discussion of dependent origination in VII, does
not actually exist, we would have the consequence of an existent
(the present person) being brought into existence dependent upon
something that no longer exists (some past person). Anything that
exists has some past.

13. So, the views “I existed,” “I didn’t exist,”

Both or neither,

In the past

Are untenable.

While Nagarjuna has not explicitly considered the “both” or
“neither” horns of the tetralemma, we have seen enough of these
arguments by this stage to know how to complete the picture.
Since neither a continually existent nor a discontinuous self makes
sense, both can’t make sense since that would just be double non-

348

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

sense. And the “neither” option is not open since there is no third
alternative. Nagarjuna now points out that the argument applies
straightforwardly to the future existence of the self:

14. To say “In the future I will exist or
Will not exist,”

Such a view is like
Those involving the past.

Another possible avenue to a permanent self is the classical
Indian view (not unlike certain Judeo-Christian views) that the
human soul partakes of the divine, and that its divinity is what
engenders its etemality:

15. If a human were a god,

On such a view there would be permanence.

The god would be unborn.

For any permanent thing is* unborn.

16. If a human were different from a god,

On such a view there would be impermanence.

If the human were different from the god,

A continuum would not be tenable.

But if the human is at all different from a god, as is eminently
plausible (i.e., nobody seriously argues that humans simply are
gods), then the permanence of the divine in no way entails the
permanence of the person. There is another possibility, however,
namely that the person is part divine and part mortal:

17. If one part were divine and
One part were human,

It would be both permanent and impermanent.

That would be irrational.

The problem with this option is that either we say that the per-
son is both permanent and impermanent, which is contradictory,
or that the divine part is permanent and the mortal part imperma-
nent. But if the person is a mereological sum of these two parts,

Examination of Views

349

then since there is an impermanent part, the whole is constantly
changing and the inherent identity of the person from moment to
moment is still lost.

18. If it could be established that

It is both permanent and impermanent,

Then it could be established that

It is neither permanent nor impermanent.

That is, the “both” and “neither” horns of the tetralemma stand
or fall together. Permanence and impermanence are mutually ex-
clusive and exhaustive alternatives. They can neither be co-present
nor co-absent. (The option of asserting them in different voices —
conventional and ultimate — is not open to the opponent here, who
is trying to defend an inherently existent self.)

19. If anyone had come from anyplace
And were then to go someplace,

It would follow that cyclic existence was beginningless.

This is not the case.

As Nagarjuna has argued, if there were to be true identity
through time, so that the person who exists now is literally identi-
cal to one who existed in the past and to one who will exist in the
future, this would have to be in virtue of sharing some essence. But
this would make real change impossible. The person, once in
saipsara, would be there essentially — the state of being in samsara
would hence be inherently existent. (Here Nagarjuna is using the
term “beginningless” as a synonym for “inherently existent.”) If
saipsara were inherently existent, it would have to be eternal and
unchanging. Nirvana would be unattainable, and samsara would
be utterly hopeless. But given the possibility of transformation, it
follows that such literal identity must be abandoned.

20. If nothing is permanent,

What will be impermanent,

Permanent and impermanent,

Or neither?

350

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

Finally, given that there are no permanent entities, no entities,
from the ultimate point of view, can serve as inherent bases of
predication. That is, the views that Nagarjuna has been consider-
ing regarding the nature of the self, which purport to give its
ultimate nature, must all be seen as incoherent on that ground
alone — namely, that they propose an ultimate analysis. Nagarjuna
now turns his attention to views not about the self, per se, but
about the world as a whole:

21. If the world were limited.

How could there be another world?

If the world were unlimited,

How could there be another world?

Nagarjuna begins by questioning the sense of the question re-
garding the limits of the world: It seems to be like a question
about the size of a table. But it is not. It is not, that is, a question
about whether there is anything beyond the world. For suppose
that the world is limited. That suggests that there is something
beyond it. But that just means that we haven’t come to the end of
the world. The whole world includes that stuff that lies beyond.
Or suppose that the world is unlimited. That suggests that there is
nothing beyond the world. But that just means that everything
that is in the world is, in fact, in the world, which is trivial. The
question regarding the limits of the world, so Nagarjuna suggests,
is nonsensical.

22, Since the continuum of the aggregates
Is like the flame of a butterlamp,

It follows that neither its finitude
Nor its infinitude makes sense.

In this discussion, Nagarjuna is focusing on the temporal limits
of the world. Again, the question regarding whether the world has
temporal limits presupposes that it is a single entity that either
exists forever or that passes out of existence. But the world,
Nagarjuna suggests, is more like a flame. It is a series of distinct
flickering events. While each event is momentary, the sequence

Examination of Views 351

continues. But there is no entity that persists and can be said to be
eternal or momentary.

23. If the previous were disintegrating
And these aggregates, which depend
Upon those aggregates, did not arise,

Then the world would be finite.

We could say that the world is finite if its current state simply
ceased and nothing else arose. But absent that, there is no basis for
positing an end, and dependent origination argues against positing
an end to the world in time.

24. If the previous were not disintegrating
And these aggregates, which depend
Upon those aggregates, did not arise,

Then the world would be infinite.

On the other hand, the world would be infinite if it reached a
stage where its current state became permanent. But again, given
the nature of dependent arising, this is not a likely eventuality.

25. If one part were finite and
One part were infinite,

Then the world would be finite and infinite.

This would make no sense.

Nagarjuna now makes use of the argument mobilized at XXVII:
17. The world cannot have these contradictory properties any
more than an individual can.

26. How could one think that

One part of the appropriator is destroyed
And one part is not destroyed?

This position makes no sense.

27. How could one think that

One part of the appropriation is destroyed
And one part is not destroyed?

This position makes no sense.

352

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

The appropriator here is the self; the appropriation, the exis-
tence of the world. Nagarjuna in these two verses is summing up
and drawing together the conclusions of the two main arguments in
the chapter. We want to say on the one hand that neither the world
nor the self is permanent. Both are thoroughly characterized by
impermanence. On the other hand, we want to say of both that
they endure in time and of each that there is no fixed boundary to
its identity. But it can’t be that either has both of these properties.

28. If it could be established that
It is both finite and infinite,

Then it could be established that
It is neither finite nor infinite.

This verse echoes XXVII: 18. If either the self or the world
could be conceived as both finite and infinite, finitude and infini-
tude would make no sense at all. They are contradictory properties
and cannot characterize the same thing at the same time. More-
over, they are exhaustive alternatives.

29. So, because all entities are empty,

Which views of permanence, etc., would occur,

And to whom, when, why, and about what
Would they occur at all?

But if we bear in mind the emptiness of all phenomena, on the
subject and on the object side, these views do not even arise as
possibilities. The self and all of the phenomena in the world itself,
being empty, are dependently arisen, conventional phenomena.
Their emptiness itself is dependently arisen and empty. There is
no candidate for permanence. There is no candidate for ultimate
impermanence. And to the extent that we grasp and live this
truth, there is no one to stand over and against the world as “I”
against “it.”

I prostrate to Gautama
Who through compassion
Taught the true doctrine,

Which leads to the relinquishing of all views.

30.

Examination of Views 353

The most common interpretation of this final verse has the
phrase “all views” (Tib: Ita-ba thams-cad , Skt: sarva-drtfi) refer-
ring to all false views, that is, all views according to which things
have inherent existence . 137 These, after all, are the views under
examination and refutation in this chapter. And it is the clear
purport of this chapter that these views are the principal hin-
drances to enlightenment and the causes of attachment to cyclic
existence. On this reading, Nagarjuna exempts his own view and
therefore the Madhyamika understanding of the Buddhist doc-
trine, which Nagarjuna here reminds us was taught compassion-
ately explicitly to enable the rejection of these views. That doc-
trine, or standpoint, on this reading, is not to be relinquished.
Indeed, one might say, it is not even a “view” in the relevant sense
since a view must be a view of something, and the analysis in terms
of emptiness reveals a world with no entities to view. This interpre-
tation is urged unanimously by all of the commentaries with which
I am familiar and by many of the scholars with whom I have
consulted.

137. This, for instance, is the view urged unanimously by Je-Tsong Khapa (pp.
477-84), mKhas-grub-rje (pp. 112-17), and dGe-’dun-grub (p. 237) and by most
of the Geluk-pa scholars with whom I have consulted. Whether Candrakirti or
Aryadeva read the text this way is unclear. On the other hand, many Nyingma
scholars adopt the alternative reading I suggest here. In conversation, H.H. the
Dalai Lama has suggested to me that the Geluk-pa interpretation may make the
most sense from the standpoint of philosophy and for the purposes of characterizing
an inferential understanding of emptiness, but that the Nyingma understanding may
provide a better expression of the nature of the direct understanding of emptiness
and may be more useful for guiding meditative practice. The Ven. Prof. Geshe
Yeshes Thap-Khas, on the other hand (oral commentary), suggests that the two
interpretations are both intended — the first as the teaching regarding the conven-
tional truth, and appropriate for those not yet advanced in meditative practice, and
the second as a teaching regarding the nature of the direct realization of emptiness
experienced by a buddha at enlightenment, and by advanced practitioners in medita-
tive equipoise directly realizing emptiness. Huntington (1989), pp. 119-22, presents
a clear and compelling discussion of such direct realization. He writes of the differ-
ence between a dualistic and nondualistic awareness of the world:

The difference is one of attitude, for all else remains as it was. Similarly, when
the bodhisattva cultivates non-dualistic knowledge he both sees and sees through
the natural interpretations that structure his world. He sees nothing new or
different, but he knows, directly and incorrigibly, that all the elements of experi-
ence are dependent upon one another and upon the nature of the perceiving
consciousness in a very profound and significant way. (p. 122)

354

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

But there is a second reading available, not instead of, but in
addition to, the standard reading. 138 There is a startling grammati-
cal and poetic parallel between this closing verse and the dramatic
dedicatory verses. Both have the form, if translated literally, al-
most preserving Tibetan word order, “To him who ... To that
[great one/Gautam] I prostrate” ( gang gis . . . dam-pal go-dam de
la phyag-’tshal lo). The echo at the end of the opening is apparent,
and it draws attention to Nagarjuna’s denial in the dedication of
the possibility of any predication from the ultimate point of view —
of the inability to say anything positive that is literally true about
the ultimate nature of things. When this is joined with our reading
of such verses as XVIII: 7,9; XXII: 11, 12, 15; XXIV: 18; and
XXV: 23 — all of which emphasize in different ways the impossibil-
ity of literal statements about the ultimate and the merely osten-
sive character of language about it, despite the need for such con-
ventional assertion to enable one to approach ultimate truth we
can see a double entendre in this verse. For, if one reads it not
from the conventional point of view as in the previous interpreta-
tion, but as an echo of the dedication, one can see Nagarjuna’s
own view and the Buddhist Dharma itself included under all
views” and, hence, necessarily to be relinquished once it is under-
stood and used. And compare especially XIII: 8:

8. The victorious ones have said

That emptiness is the relinquishing of all views.

For whomever emptiness is a view,

That one has accomplished nothing.

We can now return to this verse with more of Nagarjuna’s analy-
sis available: For the practicioner who directly realizes emptiness,
nothing is present to consciousness but emptiness itself. For such a

138. Both the Most Ven. Khamtrul Rinpoche and the Most Ven. Samdhong
Rinpoche emphatically support the second reading as the primary meaning of the
verse and as the final expression of the emptiness of emptiness (personal communi-
cation). Inada (1970) waffles. In his commentary (p. 164), he endorses the “all
views” reading. But in his translation (p. 171), he inserts “false” parenthetically
before “views.” These are clearly not consistent moves. Ng (1993) also agrees with
the “false view” reading. See pp. 18-20.

Examination of Views

355

consciousness, there literally is no object since there is in such a
consciousness no reification of the kind that gives rise to subject-
object duality. Moreover, since such a consciousness is directed
only upon what can be found ultimately to exist and since nothing
can be so found, there is literally nothing toward which such a
consciousness can be directed. But this very fact is what is
ostended by the dictum that emptiness is itself empty: Emptiness is
not the real object as opposed to the unreal objects of ordinary
perception, not the object that appears when false appearance is
shed. In fact, to the extent that it appears as an object at all, it does
so as falsely as any table. If so, the best we can then say is that from
such a standpoint the words “emptiness is empty” ascribe no prop-
erty to any object at all. From that standpoint, there is no view to
be expressed, where a view is something that can be given asser-
toric voice. For a view is possible if, and only if, (1) there is
something to view and (2) there is some way in which it is viewed.

That is, first, if it were possible to have a (true) view about
emptiness, emptiness would have to be a thing — an object of
awareness. But if we supposed that it is, a dilemma emerges: Emp-
tiness must then exist either conventionally or ultimately. The lat-
ter, as we have seen, is impossible since then it would fail itself to
be empty and not only would a central tenet of Madhyamika phi-
losophy be contradicted, but the remainder would be rendered
incoherent as well. But positing emptiness as a conventional exis-
tent and as the object of a correct view is no better, for things that
appear conventionally appear as entities— as phenomena that exist
independently and substantially. And all such appearance is, from
the standpoint of Madhyamika, in an important sense, false appear-
ance. To put this point another way, true predication is always
predication from a perspective in which the subject of the predi-
cate exists and within which the predicate can be instantiated. For
conventional entities, the conventional standpoint provides such a
perspective. But for emptiness, neither the conventional nor the
ultimate standpoint can do the job: In the conventional standpoint,
there is no emptiness; in the ultimate standpoint there are no
entities at all.

Now let us consider the second entailment — that concerning the
manner in which emptiness would need to be viewed. Views are

356

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

views of things under descriptions and, hence, are views of things as
having some nature. I view this paper as paper, as white, as a bearer
of print, as a product of a tree, and so forth. And again, so long as I
am characterizing a conventional entity as it is viewed from the
conventional perspective, there is no problem here. But when we
attempt to extend this analysis to emptiness itself, problems arise.
For the attribution of properties — descriptions under which things
can be viewed — again requires the existence of the substrata and the
possibility of their serving as property bearers, as well as the dualism
between substratum and property this presupposes. The perspec-
tive from which this continued existence and this dualism are avail-
able is the conventional perspective for it is only conventions that
bring ontology into play. But again, in that perspective, we don’t
find emptiness; we find all kinds of entities, but we find them as
entities and, hence, as nonempty. But from the perspective in which
we find emptiness, we don’t find any entities or any characteristics,
not even emptiness itself or the fact of its emptiness. Hence again,
since we can’t view emptiness even as empty, in view of its very
emptiness, we can’t have a view of emptiness. This point is made
pithily in a verse quoted by Nagarjuna in his autocommentary to the
Vigrahavyavartani: “By their nature, the things are not a determi-
nate entity. For they have only one nature, i.e. no nature”
(A$tasahasrika Prajndpdramita-sutra) .

This reading of the concluding verse, and by implication of the
related verses we have noted (particularly XIII: 8), would not
entail any self-refutation or any denial of the need at the conven-
tional level for the assertion of Buddhist doctrine or the critique
articulated by Nagarjuna in Mulamadhyamakakarikd. On the con-
trary, this interpretation would be consistent with the raft meta-
phor popular in Buddhist philosophy (one discards the raft after
one has crossed the river; it would be foolish to continue to carry it
overland; similarly, Buddhist teachings are soteriological in intent
and are to be discarded after their goal has been attained) or the
laxative metaphor of the Ratnakuta-sutra mobilized by Candrakirti
in his comments on XIII: 8 and Sextus (one wants the medicine to
be expelled along with the pathogenic bowel contents) used to
discourage grasping even to the Dharma. Hence Nagarjuna ac-
knowledges that, having announced in the dedication that nothing

Examination of Views

357

can be said truly about the final nature of things and having de-
fended this thesis exhaustively in the text, his words and those of
the Buddha cannot even be taken as literally true about the final
nature of things. Hence in order to realize that nature, one must
relinquish even a literal, nonostensive reading of these texts . 139

139. The Ven. Prof. Geshe Yeshes Thap-Khas (oral commentary) points out
that emptiness as it appears in direct realization does not appear as an entity ( ngos -
po). From the ultimate point of view there are no entities. Since a view is always a
view of an entity, in direct realization of emptiness, there is a necessary relinquish-
ing of all views, including all Buddhist and all Madhyamika views. But, he argues, it
does not follow that one not directly realizing emptiness can relinquish all views or,
in particular, that one should relinquish true ones. Insofar as direct realization of
emptiness is a primary goal of Buddhist practice, he argues, and especially of the
practice of Buddhist philosophy, it is hence appropriate to read this verse in this
way as well as in the more conventional way.

The Ven. Geshe Yeshe Topden (also in oral commentary) puts this a bit differ-
ently: Emptiness, he argues, when it is known inferentially, is known as a positive
phenomenon and appears as an inherently existent entity, even though the subject
of such a cognition knows that it is not so (compare a mirage that appears as water
even to someone who knows that it is merely a mirage). And in order to realize
emptiness in this way, one must make use of the Madhyamika view while rejecting
all false views. To one who directly apprehends emptiness, however, he claims,
emptiness, while an object of such an awareness, is not a positive phenomenon, but
a mere negation of all positive phenomena and is not different in entity from the
mind cognizing it. In such an awareness, he claims, since emptiness does not appear
as qualified in any way and since such an awareness is nonconceptual, there is no
view of emptiness. So, he argues, even the Madhyamika view is to be relinquished
at the stage of direct realization. Nonetheless, the verse indicates first, on his
reading, the necessity to relinquish all false views, and then, in direct realization to
relinquish the Madhyamika view.

Mukhefjee (1985) makes a similar point:

A significant point that the Madhyamikas never fail to make out is that reason
and concepts have a place in Vyavahara. It is possible to select a pattern, hold a
position without clinging to it, i.e., without being dogmatic. It teaches one to
look at a view as something relative and shows that the error of clinging is not
essential to reason. . . . Did not the Buddha himself use words, concepts without
clinging to them? . . .

By being free of clinging one attains a level that is transcendent to all the
views, but at the same time he remains fully cognisant of the other levels in their
minutest details without losing sight of the undivided reality. He sees these levels
as not yet perfect; he sees them as various stages on the way to the perfect.” (pp.
221 - 22 )

See also Kalupahana (1986), p. 80. But Kalupahana also says that these final lines
“clearly show that Nagarjuna was aware that the Buddha did not speak ‘meta-
physically’ but only ‘empirically’ ” (p. 391). That conclusion certainly does not
follow. To refuse to give a metaphysical theory of the nature of phenomena and to

358

THE TEXT AND COMMENTARY

One must realize the ultimate truth dependent upon the conven-
tional, but abandon all of these necessarily conventional designa-
tions as characterizations of an ultimate nature that is ultimately
uncharacterizable . 140

The anticipation of Wittgenstein’s close of the Tractatus is
remarkable:

6.54 My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: any-
one who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when
he has used them — as steps — to climb beyond them. (He must, so to
speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)

7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

Nagarjuna may well have intended (and of course we have no
way of knowing what he intended, nor would it make much differ-
ence to interpretation at this point) both readings — the standard
reading at the conventional level, according to which the truth of
his own standpoint contrasts with all other false views, and this
latter reading at the ultimate level, at which his own view must
itself be seen as a merely conventional ostention of an ineffable
ultimate truth . 141 And if the doctrine of the two truths and their
identity is correct, these readings are mutually entailing. To assert

refuse to characterize what cannot be spoken of coherently does not by itself con-
stitute an eschewal of metaphysics. Nor does it indicate that the arguments offered in
this text are empirical. Manifestly, a great deal of metaphysics (albeit of a highly
critical and negative kind) and very little empirical discussion occur in this text.

140. Wood (1994) argues, following his nihilistic interpretation of Nagarjuna,
that here and in Vigrahavyavartani Nagarjuna is, in virtue of denying the existence
of even his own view, completing a nihilistic program that denies existence of any
kind to anything. As should be clear by now, I think that this nihilistic reading is
untenable. Nonetheless, it is surely the case that Wood is correct in claiming that
Nagarjuna wishes to treat emptiness in exactly the way that he treats other
phenomena — as empty — and that any theory about it that presupposes it has an
essence must be false. I part company with Wood only when he goes on to interpret
emptiness as complete nonexistence. A careful reading of Vigrahavyavartani re-
veals, as Wood notes, that Nagarjuna denies that he has a proposition ( pratijhd ),
but not that he utters words. Nagarjuna is working to show the merely conventional
character of his utterance and that its utility does not entail the existence of any
convention-independent reality as its semantic value. But that is a far cry from
nihilism. See Garfield (unpublished) for a more sustained discussion of emptiness
and positionlessness.

141. Streng (1973) agrees. See chap. 6.

Examination of Views

359

from the conventional standpoint that all phenomena are empty
and that all views according to which they are not are to be relin-
quished is to recognize from the ultimate standpoint that there are
no phenomena to be empty and that no view attributing any charac-
teristic to anything can be maintained. Even the emptiness of emp-
tiness is empty. ...

May whatever merit has been achieved through this work and
through its study be dedicated to the liberation of all sentient
beings from cyclic existence.

References

While not all of these texts are explicitly cited in my discussion, all
have influenced my views and my treatment of the text in some
ways. With some I am in almost complete agreement; with others I
take issue in whole or in part. But all have been helpful to me in
thinking about Nagarjuna’s argument. This is not, however, by any
means meant to be a complete bibliography of useful works on
Nagarjuna — only an indication of what influenced me. The En-
glish translations of canonical texts are given where available.

Earlier Translations of Mulamadhyamakakarika

Inada, Kenneth K. (1970), Nagarjuna: A Translation of his Mulamad-
hyamikakdrika With an Introductory Essay. Tokyo: The Hokuseido
Press.

Kalupahana, David J. (1986). Nagarjuna : The Philosophy of the Middle
Way. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Streng, Frederick (1967). Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning. Nash-
ville: Abdingdon Press.

Other Works by Nagarjuna

Ratnavali (Precious Garland of Advice for the King), trans. J. Hopkins. In
Hopkins and H.H. the Dalai Lama (1975), The Buddhism of Tibet.
London: Wisdom Publications.

Sunyatdsaptati (Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness), trans. C. Lindtner. In
Lindtner (1986), Master of Wisdom. Oakland: Dharma Press.

362

References

Vigrahavyavartani (Replies to Objections), trans. K. Bhattacharya, E. H.
Johnston, and A. Kunst in Bhattacarya, Johnston and Kunst
(1985), The Dialectical Method of N agar juna: Vigrahavyavartani.
New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Yukti$a$tika (Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning), trans. C. Lindtner. In Lindtner
(1986), Master of Wisdom. Oakland: Dharma Press.

Primary Canonical Texts

Aryadeva, CatuMataka (Four Hundred Stanzas), trans. K. Lang. In Lang
(1986), Aryadeva* s Catuhfataka: On the Bodhisattva' s Cultivation
of Merit and Knowledge. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag.

Candrakirti, Madhyamakavatara (Entrance into the Middle Way), trans.
C. W. Huntington and Geshe Namgyal Wangchen. In Huntington
and Wangchen (1989), The Emptiness of Emptiness. Honolulu: Uni-
versity of Hawaii Press.

Prasannapada (Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way), trans. M.

Sprung and T. R. V. Murti. In Sprung (1979), Lucid Exposition of
the Middle Way. Boulder: Prajna Press.

— — , Prasannapada (Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way), trans. J.
May in May (1959), Candrakirti Prasannapada Mddhyamakavrtti.
Paris: Adrien Maisoneuve.

, Madhyamakdvatarabhasya (Tibetan translation: dBu ma 'jug pa* i

rang 'grel bzhugs) (1992). Samath: Kagyu Relief Society, Central
Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies.

dGe 'dun grub, dBu ma rtsa shes rtsa 'grel bzhugs (Commentary
on Mulamadhyamakakarikd) (1987). Sarnath: Ge Lugs Pa Stu-
dents’ Welfare Publishing, Central Institute of Higher Tibetan
Studies.

mKhas grub-rje, sTong thun chen mo , trans. J. Cabezon. In Cabezon
(1992), A Dose of Emptiness. Albany: State University of New
York Press.

Tsong Khapa, Tsa she tig chen rigs pa’i rgya mtsho (1973). Samath: Ge
Lugs Pa Students’ Welfare Publishing, Central Institute of Higher
Tibetan Studies.

, The Speech of Gold in the Essence of True Eloquence (1984).

Trans. R. Thurman. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

VimalakirtinirdeSa-sutra, trans. R. Thurman in Thurman (1976), The Holy
Teachings of Vimalakirti. State College: Penn State University
Press.

References

Recent Scholarship and Western Texts

363

Ames, W. L. (1986). “Buddhapalita’s Exposition of the Madhyamika.”
Journal of Indian Philosophy 14 (4): 313-48.

Anderson, T. (1985). “Wittgenstein and Nagarj una’s Paradox.” Philoso-
phy East and West 35 (2): 157-170.

Betty, L. S. (1983). “Nagarjuna’s Masterpiece — Logical, Mystical, Both
or Neither?” Philosophy East and West 33 (2): 123-38.

Bhattacharyya, B. (1979). “The Concept of Existence and Nagarjuna’s
Doctrine of Sunyata.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 7: 335-44.

Broido, M. (1988). “Veridical and Delusive Cognition: Tsong Kha-Pa On
The T\vo Satyas.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 16: 29-63.

Bugault, G. (1983).. “Logic and Dialectics in the Madhyamikakarikas.”
Journal of Indian Philosophy 11 (1): 7-76.

Crittenden, C. (1981). “Everyday Reality as Fiction — A Madhyamika
Interpretation.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 9: 323-33.

Dargyay, L. (1990). “What is Non-existent and What is Remanent in
Siinyata.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 18: 81-91.

Della Santina, P. (1986). Madhyamika Schools in India. New Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass.

Eckel, M. D. (1978). “Bhavaviveka and the Early Madhyamika Theories
of Language.” Philosophy East and West 28 (3): 323-37.

Evans, R. D., and B. K. Matilal (1986). Buddhist Logic and Epistemol-
ogy. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing.

Garfield, J. L. (1990). “Epochs and Sunyata: Scepticism East and West.”
Philosophy East and West 40 (3): 285-308.

(1994). ’’Dependent Co-origination and the Emptiness of Empti-
ness: Why did Nagarjuna begin with Causation?” Philosophy East
and West 44: 219-50.

(unpublished MS). “Emptiness and Positionlessness: Do the Mad-
hyamika Really Relinquish All Views?”

Ghose. R. M. (1987). The Dialectics of Nagarjuna. Allahabad: Vohra
Press.

Gudmunsen, C. (1977). Wittgenstein and Buddhism. London: MacMillan.

Gyatso, L. (1993). The Harmony of Emptiness and Dependent Arising.
Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.

Hopkins, J. (1983). Meditation on Emptiness. Boston: Wisdom Publica-
tions.

Hume, D. (1967). A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Huntington, C. W. (1983a). “A Non-Referential View of Language and

364

References

Conceptual Thought in the Work of Tfcong Kha-Pa.” Philosophy
East and West 33 (4) : 325-40.

(1983b). “The System of the TWo Truths in the Prasannapadd and

in the Mddhyamakavatara: A Study in Madhyamaka Soteriology.”
Journal of Indian Philosophy 11 (1): 77-107.

(1989). The Emptiness of Emptiness. Honolulu: University of Ha-
waii Press.

Kant, I. (1929). Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. Kemp-Smith. New
York: St. Martin’s Press.

Lindtner, C. (1986). Master of Wisdom. Oakland: Dharma Press.

Lopez, D. (1987). A Study of Svatantrika. Ithaca: Snow Lion Press.

Matilal, B. K. (1973). “A Critique of the Madhyamika Position.” In
Sprung, ed. (1973). The Problem of Two Truths in Buddhism and
Vedanta. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing.

(1977). The Logical Illumination of Indian Mysticism. Oxford: Cla-
rendon.

Mukherjee, B. (1985). “The Middle Way.” In S. Rinpoche, ed. (1985).
Madhyamika Dialectics and the Philosophy of Nagarjuna. Samath:
CIHTS Press.

Murti, T. R. V. (1955). The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. London:
Allen & Unwin.

(1973). “Sarpvrti and Paramartha in Madhyamika and Advaita Ve-
danta.” In Sprung, ed. (1973). The Problem of TWo Truths in Bud-
dhism and Vedanta. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing.

-(1985). Preface to S. Rinpoche, ed., Madhyamika Dialectic and the

Philosophy of Nagarjuna. Samath: Central Institute of Higher Ti-
betan Studies.

Nagao, G. (1989). The Foundational Standpoint of Madhyamika Philoso-
phy. Trans. J. Keenan. Albany: State University of New York
Press.

(1991). Madhyamika and Yogacdra. Albany: State University of

New York Press.

Napper, E. (1989). Dependent Arising and Emptiness. Boston: Wisdom
Publications.

Nayak, G. C. (1979). “The Madhyamika Attack on Essentialism: A Criti-
cal Appraisal.” Philosophy East and West 29 (4): pp. 478-90.

Newland, G. (1992). The Two Truths. Boston: Wisdom Publications.

Ng, Yu Kwan (1993). T’ien-t’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika. Hono-
lulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Padhye, A. M. (1988). The Framework of Nagarjuna’ s Philosophy. New
Delhi: Sri Satguru.

References 365

Rabten, Geshe, and S. Batchelor (1983). Echoes of Voidness. London:
Wisdom Publications.

Ramanan, V. (1975). Nagarjuna s Philosophy. New Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass.

Robinson, R. (1957). “Some Logical Aspects of Nagarj una’s System.”
Philosophy East and West 6: 291-308.

(1972). “Did Nagarjuna Really Refute all Philosophical Views?”

Philosophy East and West 22 (3): 325-31.

Ruegg, D. S. (1977). “The Uses of the Four Positions in the Catu$koti and
the Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahayana Bud-
dhism.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 5 (1): 1-71.

(1983). “On the Thesis and Assertion in the Madhyamika/dBu Ma.”

In Steinkellner and Taschner, eds. (1983), Contributions on Tibetan
Buddhist Religion and Philosophy, 205-241. Weiner Studien sur
Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, Heft II. Vienna: Arbeitskreis
fur Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, University of Vienna.

(1986). “Does the Madhyamika Have a Thesis and Philosophical

Position?” In Evans and Matilal (1986), Buddhist Logic and Episte-
mology, 229-37. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing.

Samdhong Rinpoche, ed. (1985). Madhyamika Dialectics and the Philoso-
phy of Nagarjuna. Sarnath: CIHTS Press.

Siderits, M. (1988). “Nagarjuna as an Anti-Realist.” Journal of Indian
Philosophy 16: 311-25.

(1989). “Thinking on Empty: Madhyamaka Anti-Realism and Can-
ons of Rationality.” In S. Biderman and B. A. Schaufstein, eds.
Rationality in Question. Dordrecht: Brill.

(unpublished). “Matilal on Nagarjuna.”

Sogyal Rinpoche (1992). The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. San
Francisco: Harper.

Sprung, M. (1973). “The Madhyamika Doctrine of T\vo Realities as a
Metaphysic.” In Sprung, ed. (1973). The Problem of Two Truths in
Buddhism and Vedanta. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing.

Sprung, M., ed. (1973). The Problem of Two Truths in Buddhism and
Vedanta. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing.

Steinkellner, E., and H. Taschner, eds. (1983). Contributions on Tibetan
Buddhist Religion and Philosophy . Wiener Studien sur Tibetologie
und Buddhismuskunde, Heft 11. Vienna: Arbeitskreis fur Ti-
betische und Buddhistische Studien, University of Vienna.

Streng, F. (1973). “The Significance of Pratltyasamutpada for Understand-
ing the Relationship between Saipvj-ti and Paramarthasatya in
Nagarjuna.” In Sprung, ed. (1973).

366

References

Tola, F., and Dragonetti, C. (1981). “Nagarjuna’s Conception of ‘Void-
ness’ (Sunyata).” Journal of Indian Philosophy 9: 273-82.

Ibck, A. P. (1990). Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of Schol-
arship: On the Western Interpretation of Ndgdrjuna. New York:
Oxford University Press.

Waldo, I. (1975). “Nagarjuna and Analytic Philosophy,” Philosophy East
and West 25 (3): 287-98.

(1978). “Nagarjuna and Analytic Philosophy II.” Philosophy East

and West 28 (3): 281-90.

Walsh, M., trans. (1987). Thus Have I Heard: The Long Discourses of The
Buddha . London: Wisdom Publications.

Warder, A. K. (1973). “Is Nagarjuna a Mahayanist?” In Sprung, ed.
(1973).

Williams, P. (1980). “Tsong Khapa on Kun-rdzob bDen-pa .” In M. Aris
and T. Aung, eds. , Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson.
New Delhi: Vikas. (1980).

(1982). “Silence and Truth.” Tibet Journal 2: 67-80.

(1983). “A Note on Some Aspects of Mi bskyod rdo rje’s Critique

. of dGe lugs pa Madhyamika.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 11 (2):
125-46.

(1989). Mahay ana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. London:

Routledge.

Wittgenstein, L. (1922). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. B. F.
McGuinness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

(1953). Philosophical Investigations . Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe.

New York: MacMillan.

Wood, T. (1994). Nagdrjunian Disputations: A Philosophical Journey
Through an Indian Looking-Glass. Monographs of the Society for
Asian and Comparative Philosophy, no. 11. Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press.

Index

Note: Tibetan terms are indexed alphabetically according to Wylie transcription,
and not by root letter.

Action, 178-32, 231-44, 312-13, 318,
335-36, 339-40
and change, 179
classification of, 232
consequences of, 234-44
and ignorance, 335-36
and pleasure, 233
as a promissory note, 236-37, 239
and soteriology, 180, 318
speech, 232-33
Agent, 178-82

Aggregates, 141, 142, 176, 245-46,
276-78

Appropriation, 182, 184-85, n. 58, 279
Arising, 163-64, 267-74
basic, 163-64

Aryadeva, 213, 300n. 112, 353n. 137
Asat , 116

Assertion, 100-101, 212-15, 324-25,
355-59

Association, 155-58
Attachment, 236-37

B&la , 103n. 15
Becoming. See Arising
Berkeley, G., 94, 178, 314n. 122
Bhattacarya, B., 116n. 30, 220-21n. 78

Bhava , 324

Bhavaviveka, 300n. 112
Bondage, 225-30
Brten nas b dags -pa, 305
Buddha, 275-83, 295, 310-11
Buddhahood, 91, 275-83, 332n. 132
Buddhapalita, 97, 300n. 112
Butterlamp, 164-67
Bya-ba , 103

Cabezon, J., 87n. 18
Candrakirti, 92n. 8, 94n. 10, 96, 97,
98, 100, 104n. 16, 119n. 33,
184-85n. 58, 213-14, 276-77,
297n. 109, 300n. 112, 307, 353n.
137, 356
Carvaka, 249

Catuhsdtaka , 213, 300n. 112
Causal power, 103, 105, 108, 109,
112-13, 114-15, 118-20, 262-63
Causation, 91, 103-23, 262-63
from another, 106
causal nexus, 104, 113-15, 262-63
emptiness of, 122
by self, 105-6, 112
by self and other, 106-7
Causelessness, 107

Index

368

Cessation, 171, 173-76, 267-74
Change, 125-26, 209-11, 223-24,

226

Characteristics, 149-52
Cittam&tra, 87n. 1, 104, 178
Cogito, 138n. 40
Combination, 258-66
of conditions, 258-61
emptiness of, 265-66
temporal structure of, 260-63
Compounded phenomena, 207-15,
219, 326

Conceptual imputation, 102
Conditions, 103-23
combinations of, 258-61
dominant, 109
efficient, 108, 109, 117
as explanans, 112-13
immediate, 109, 117, 118
percept-object, 108, 109, 117-18
varieties of, 107, 109
Connection, 191-92, 216-19
Convention, 89, 93-94, 199-200n. 67,
304-8, 313-15, 319-21
Conventional existence, 90, 101, 102,
116

Conventional reality, 88, 95n. 11, 208,
243-44, 252, 304-8, 313-15,
319-21

as deceptive, 208, 243-44
Conventional truth, 101, 114, 243-44,
275, 297-98, 313-14, 319-21
Consciousness, 337-38
Contact, 337
Craving, 152, 338
Crittenden, C., 299n. 110
Cyclic existence, 196-201, 225-30

Dalai Lama, H. H., 252n. 97, 305n.

117, 325n. 126, 353n. 137
Dam-pa* i don gyi bden-pa , 297-98
Darkness, 165-66
Dedicatory Verses, 100-102
Defilements, 285-86
Delusion, 236-37, 248, 326

Dependent co-origination, 91, 93-94,
105, 119-20, 159-69, 304-8
characteristics of, 160-62
and emptiness, 304-8, 313-15, 317
emptiness of, 122, 159-61, 176-77*
252-53, 264-65
and sarps&ra, 326
Dependent designation, 304-8
Descartes, R., 138n. 40, 183, 188
Desire, 153-58
Destruction. See Cessation
DGe-’dun-grub, 97, 117n. 37, 340n.

136, 353n. 137
Dharma, 295, 310-11
Dharmaklrti, 109n. 22
Difference, 155-58, 195, 217-19
and connection, 217-19
and identity, 195
and simultaneity, 155-58
DignSga, 109n. 22
Dispositions, 339
Dngos-po , 324
Ddgen, 257n. 99
Dran byed> 337
Dream simile, 176-77, 243-44
Drepung Loseling Monastic College,

Dreyfus, G., 102n. 13, 109n. 22
Dm i, 212, 353

Duality/dualism, 273, 302, 325
Du byed , 160n. 52, 207-08n. 69, 225n.
82, 339n. 136

Eightfold path, 294, 309-10
Eliminative materialism, 249
Emptiness, 88-91, 93-95, 211-15,

312- 17, 319-21

and convention, 94, 95n. 11, 304-8,

313- 15, 319-21

and dependent arising, 93-94, 221,
264-65, 304-8, 313-15, 317
of emptiness, 90, 94, 177, 215, 249,
280-81, 312, 313-17, 319-21, 331
as an entity, 211-15, 325, 355-59
as an essence, 91, 209, 212-13

Index

369

and impermanence, 264-65, 317
and nihilism, 300-304, 314-15
and nonexistence, 133
realization of, 248, 325, 332-33,
355-59

Endurance, 171-76
Errors, 284-92 .
and defilements, 285-86
emptiness of, 290-92
and grasping, 289
and impermanence, 288
and pleasure, 287-88
and samsara, 284-85
Essence, 89-90, 100, 103, 110-11, 112,
116, 118, 119, 121, 209, 220-24,
278, 282

and change, 223-24
emptiness as, 91, 209, 212-13, 282
otherness-essence, 110, 221-22, 278
and permanence, 220-21
Examples

butterlamp, 164-67
cloth, 195

fire and fuel, 138-39, 189-95
horse, 301

light switch, 109, 110, 115
magic, 243

match lighting, 168, 259
milk and curd, 211
mirage, 237, 243-44, 302n. 114
pot, 195

seed and sprout, 106, 115, 234, 260
table, 89-90, 109, 111, 199, 209, 222,
315

tree perception, 117-18
Existence, 116

conventional, 90, 101, 102, 116
inherent, 88-89, 90, 102, 116, 117,
118, 126, 147-48, 220, 281
Meinongian, 117, 187-88, 272-73
Explanation, 91, 109, 110, 112-113,
116, 122, 145-146

Feeling, 338

Fire and fuel, 138-39, 189-95

Fivefold analysis, 276-77, 286
Form, 142-46
cause of, 143-45
explanation of, 145-46
Four Noble Truths, 91 , 202, 203,
293-321

Gadamer, G., 96
Gandharva City, 176, 243
Geluk-pa tradition, 97-98
Gnas-pa , 171
Grag , 115n. 28

Grasping, 226-30, 248, 289, 338
Grogs -pa, 156
Gudmunson, C., 114n. 26
Gyatso, L., 98, 105n. 17, 115n. 27,
125-26n. 35, 138n. 40
Gyatso, S., 196-97n. 64, 339-40n. 136
Gzhan-dngos, 111
Gzugs , 142

Heart Sutra, 153n. 51
Hermeneutics, 95-99
Hetu, 103

Hume, D., 107, 114, 132n. 37, 135n.
39, 156-57, 178, 183, 184, 246,
247, 300, 317

Huntington, C., 94n. 10, 114n. 26,
280n. 103, 293n. 110, 353n. 137

Idealism, 108, 145n. 45
Identity, 101, 102, 195, 210-11
and change, 210-11
conventional, 195
intrinsic, 101, 102

Ignorance, 236-37, 335-36, 339-40
Illusion simile, 176-77
Impermanence, 101, 264-65, 267-74,
288, 317

Inada, K., 104n. 16, 119n. 33, 149n. 50,
211n. 72, 250n. 93, 263n. 100, 339n.
130, 339-40n. 136, 354n. 138
Ineffability, 275-76, 355-59
Innate misapprehension, 88n. 2
Intentionality, 108

370

Index

Kalupahana, D., 92n. 8, 93n. 9, 104n.
16, 119n. 33, 138n. 40, 146n. 47,
148n. 48, 149n. 50, 160n. 52, 192n.
62, 207-8n. 69, 223n. 79, 235n. 90,
252n. 97, 253n. 98, 282n. 105,

297n. 108, 333n. 133, 357-58n.

139

Kant, I., 110, 178, 183, 185, 197-98,
251-52, 299n. 110

Karma, 231, 233-38, 240-42, 312-13,
336n. 135

Katyayana, Discourse to , 222-24
Khamtrul Rinpoche, 354n. 138
’ATior, 225n. 82
’ Khor-ba , 196n. 63
Kila , 115n. 28
Kriya , 103

Kun-dzob bden-pa , 297
Kun-dzob yod-pa , 298n. 109

Language, 325n. 126
Las , 336n. 136
Lopez, D., 87n. 1
Lta-ba, 212, 353

Madhyamakavatara , 94n. 10, 276-77
Matilal, B.,251n. 96
McTaggart, I, 254
Meditation, 237
Med-pa , 116
Methodology, 95-99
Middle way, 94, 302, 304-8
MKhas-grub-rje, 97, 353n. 137
Morality, 240-41, 312-13
Motion, 124-35, 167-68
beginning and end of, 129-30
and change, 125-26
conventional existence of, 134-35
emptiness of, 134-35
as an entity, 131-32
twofold, 127-28
Mtshan nyid , 149n. 50
Mukherjee, B., 357n. 139
Murti, T., 198n. 66, 214n. 74, 252n, 97,
297n. 109, 305-6n. 119

Nagao, G., 87n. 1, llOn. 23, 119n. 33,
252n. 97, 282n. 104, 299n. 110,
305n. 118, 306n. 119, 306-7n. 120,
331n. 129

Name and form, 336-37
Napper, E., 95n. 11, 306n. 119
Nayak, G., 325n. 126, 332n. 131
Newland, G., 95n. 11
Ng, Y.-K., 89n. 5, 214n. 75, 224n. 81,
250n, 93, 251n. 95, 282n. 104,

307n. 120, 354n. 138
Nihilism, 102, 107, 122, 169n. 54, 212n.
73, 223-24, 237, 249, 293, 300-304
and emptiness, 293, 300-304, 314-15
and reification, 302, 304
about the self, 249

Nirvana, 91, 101, 227, 249-50, 322-34
attainment of, 323, 328, 332, 339-40
characterization of, 323-24
as dependent, 326
emptiness of, 230, 281, 323-28
existence of, 325-27
grasping of, 229-30, 314
omniscience in, 332n. 132
possibility of, 284-85, 290-92
and saipsara, 249-50, 285, 322, 323,
325-26, 328, 331-33, 340
Nominal existence, 90, 305-8
Nominal truth, 88, 280
Nonduality, 325

Norbu, L., Shastri, 105n. 17, 125-26n.
35

Nye-bar-len-pa , 226n. 83
Nyimgma tradition, 98

Occult connection, 104, 113-15,

262-63

Ostention, 102
Otherness-essence, 110

Padhye, A., 280n. 103, 300n. 114,

305n. 116, 329n. 128, 334n. 134
Parabhava , 111
Paramartha-satya , 298
Particulars, 151

Index

371

Peacefulness, 168-69
Perception, 184-87, 216-17
Permanence, 224

Philosophical Investigations, 114n. 26
Phrad-pa , 216

Pleasant and unpleasant, 287-88
Positionlessness, 212-15, 265, 307
Potential existence, 105-6, 120, 262
Pot(hapdda Sutra , 197n. 65
Prajnaptir-up&ddya , 305
Prasaogika-Madhyamika, 87, 97, 98,
100, 101

Prasannapadd , 94n. 10, 96, 100, 307

Pratijhd , 358n. 140

Pratityasamutpada , 91

Pratyaya , 103-4

Properties, 149-52

Pyrrhonism, 137-38, 300, 307, 317

Rangbzhin , 89n. 4, 103, 111
£afruz&£to-5urra, 356
Rebirth, 199, 237-38, 241-42
Regularity, 116, 259-60
Reification, 122, 223, 237, 293, 302,
304, 308
Rest, 130
Rgyu, 103
Rkyen , 103-4
Rnam-par shes-pa, 338
Robinson, R., 300n. Ill
Ruegg, D.,250n. 93, 25 In. 96
Rung-ba , 301 n. 113
Rupa , 142

Samdhong Rinpoche, 98, 295n. 107,
354n. 138
Samkhya, 105
Sarpsar, 225n. 82
Saipsara, 101, 196n. 63, 284-85,

336

as illusion, 285
and nirvaqa, 249-50, 284-85
Saqtskara , 207-8n. 69, 339n. 136
Sarpvrti-satya , 297
Sangha, 295, 310-11

Santa Claus, 251n. 94, 327
Sarvastivada, 104, 109n. 22
Sat, 116

Sautantrika-Svatantrika, 104, 189
Schopenhauer, A., 185
Self, 183-88, 195, 245-53, 343-49
and aggregates, 195, 245-46
conventional reality of, 187-88
identity, 204-5, 343-49
and introspection, 246
as a substratum, 247
Sellars, W., 96n. 12
Senses, 136-41, 338
Sextus Empiricus, 107, 118, 129, 246,
254, 356
Shakti , 103n. 15

Siderits, M., 91n. 7, 212n. 73, 214n. 74
Simultaneity, 155-58
and difference, 155-58
Skandhas , 141n. 43
Sogyal Rinpoche, 196n. 63
Soteriology, 88n. 2, 152, 180, 248, 273,
314, 317, 339-40, 356-59
Space, 149-52

Sparham, G., 149n. 50, 184-85n. 58
Sprung, M., 94n. 10, 95n. 11, 96, 119n.
33, 214n. 77, 250n. 93, 251n. 96,
339-40n. 136
Stasis, 130, 171-76
Stcherbatsky, T., 300n. Ill
Stob , 103n. 15

Streng, F., 95n. 11, 104n. 16, 112n. 25,
119n. 33, 299n. 110, 306n. 119,
307n. 121, 324n. 125, 332n. 131,
339n. 136, 358n. 141
Structure of text, 91-93
Subject of experience, 183-88
interdependence with object, 184-85
multiplicity, 185-86
Substantial difference, 101
Suffering, 152, 202-6, 308-10
cause of, 152, 205-6, 308-10
emptiness of, 206, 308-10
relation to sufferer, 203-4
Supervenience, 144n. 46

372

Index

Svabh&va , 89n. 4, 103
SvStantrika-Madhyamika, 87

Tathagata, 275-83

Tetralemma, 249-51, 270-71, 280-81,
324-31, 333-34

negative, 280-81, 324-31, 333-34
positive, 249-51

Thap-Khas, Y., 98, 105n. 17, 125-26n.

35, 353n. 137, 357n. 139
Tha-snyed bden-pa, 298n. 109
Tha-snyed yod-pa, 298n. 109
Third man argument, 128
Thongs-ba , 263
Topden, Y., 357n. 139
Three jewels, 295, 310-11
Thurman, R., 114n. 26
Time, 254-57, 274
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , 114,
156-57, 213, 358
Transmigration, 225-30
and change, 226
and grasping, 226-30
Tsong Khapa, 92n. 8, 97-98, 104n. 16,
105n. 17, 117n. 37, 184-85n. 58,
189n. 60, 207-8n. 69, 233n. 88,
340n. 136
T\ick, A., 114m 26
TWelve links, 335-41
Two truths, 88, 90, 91, 95n. 11, 275-
76, 296-99, 305-6n. 119, 315-16,
318-21,322,331

Uji, 257n. 99

Ultimate reality, 89n. 3, 101
Ultimate standpoint, 101, 114

Ultimate truth, 88, 91n. 7, 92, 93-94,
275-76, 280-81, 297-99
and conventional truth, 297-99
and ineffability, 275-76, 280-81
and reasoning, 298-99
Unanswerable questions, 116, 197-98

Vaibh&ika, 189

Verse XXIV: 18, 93-94, 215, 304-8,
318-21, 354
Views, 342-59
erroneous, 342-52
relinquishing of, 212-15, 265, 307,
352-59

Vigrahavy&vartant , 213-14, 280n .103,
302n. 114, 307, 356, 358n. 140
Vimalaklrti-nirdeia-sutra , 325
Visual apperception, 137
Vyavah&ra-satya, 297n. 109

Waldo, I., 114n. 26
Wangchen, N., 94n. 10, 98
Wittgenstein, L., 107, 114, 156-57,
213, 282, 300, 358

Wood, T., 89n. 5, 104n. 16, 109-10n.
23, 169n. 54, 208n. 70, 212n. 73,
250-5 In. 93, 251n. %, 300n. Ill,
112, 300n. 114, 358n. 140
World/finitude of, 350-52

Yod-pa , 116
YogScara, 87n. 1, 104
Yukti$a$tik& , 230n. 84, 328n. 127

Zeno, 125n. 34, 129, 254
Zhi-ba, 168

PHILOSOPHY / RELIGION

OXFORD

A NEW TRANSLATION OF THE GREATEST WORK BY

Mahayana Buddhism’s most influential philosopher

The Buddhist saint Nagarjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the
second century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely
studied Mahayana Buddhist philosopher. His many works include texts
addressed to lay audiences, letters of advice to kings, and a set of penetrating
metaphysical and epistemological treatises. His greatest philosophical work, the
Mulamadhyamakakarika — read and studied by philosophers in all major
Buddhist schools of Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea — is one of the most influen-
tial works in the history of Indian philosophy. Now, in The Fundamental Wisdom
of the Middle Way , Jay L. Garfield provides a clear and eminently readable
translation of Nagaijuna’s seminal work, offering those with little or no prior
knowledge of Buddhist philosophy a view into the profound logic of the
Mulamadhyamakakarika He offers an illuminating verse-by-verse commentary
that explains Nagarjuna’s positions and arguments in the language of Western
metaphysics and epistemology, and connects Nagarujuna’s concerns to those of
Western philosophers such as Sextus, Hume, and Wittgenstein.

An accessible translation of the foundational text for all Mahayana Buddhism,
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way will offer insight to all those
interested in the nature of reality.

“Stands a very good chance of being the first English translation that conveys to the
reader something of the profundity and puzzle of the original.”

Gareth Sparham, Institute of Buddhist Dialectics

“Garfield’s interpretation of Nagarjuna is pleasingly clear and evinces a balanced
appreciation of his soteriological concerns as well as his dialectical subtlety.”

Graham Parkes, University of Hawaii

“ The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way will be enormously beneficial.”

Guy Newland, Central Michigan University

Jay L. Garfield is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Hampshire in India
Program (an exchange program with the Tibetan universities in exile) at Hampshire
College. He is the author of Belief in Psychology , Cognitive Science: An
Introduction , and the forthcoming Western Idealism and Its Critics: A Textbook For
Tibetan Monastic Universities .

Cover art: Nagarjuna thangka by Tsering Puntshog,
Dharamsala, India. Photographed by Melissa A. Prado.
Logistical Assistance: The Ven. Sherab Gyatso, Karin
Meyers.

Cover design by Marek Antoniak

Oxford Paperbacks

Oxford University Press
U.S. $17.95

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Texts

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Nagarjuna The Fundamental Wisdom Of The Middle Way"

See other formats